An archive of materials pertaining to Richard P. Feynman’s involvement in Theatre Arts at CalTech including a signed copy of Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Pasadena, CA and New York: Theatre Arts at the California Institute of Technology; W.W. Norton; Basic Books.
A collection of materials pertaining to Richard P. Feynman’s involvement in Theatre Arts at the California Institute of Technology (TACIT), with all materials from the estate of Shirley Marneus, who founded TACIT and directed stage productions there for over 20 years. Highlights include a signed copy of Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Fenyman!. New York: W.W. Norton, 1985. Ninth printing. Near Fine with foxing to the top edge and lesser so to the fore edge and endsheets, corner crease to page 127/128; in the original dust jacket which is spine-faded; and a first edition of the posthumously published Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman, inscribed by Feynman’s daughter, editor Michelle Feynman, to Marneus: “For Shirley, I know my father thought the world of you – as do I. All the best, Michelle Feynman”. Additional material includes: The original cast information sheet for what is perhaps Feynman’s most memorable role, the High Priest in TACIT’s 1982 production of South Pacific, which includes Feynman’s contact information, as well as costume measurements including his shoe and hat sizes; The rehearsal schedule for South Pacific, which notes a production meeting with Richard Feynman and fellow Caltech physicist Robert B. Leighton, who played the High Priest’s assistant; Programs for six of the productions in which Feynman appeared and is credited: Guys and Dolls, South Pacific (four copies), The Lady’s Not for Burning, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Kismet, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; Cast list, organized by scene, for TACIT’s 1978 production of Fiorello!, in which Feynman appeared as a gangster; the 1983 Caltech Faculty Roster, in which Feynman is identified as the Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics alongside his portrait; 18 copies of a memorial program insert dedicating an unnamed production to Feynman “who brought the same compassion, integrity and sense of joy to each of his roles as he did to all other aspects of his life,” listing all eight TACIT productions in which he appeared. Some toning and soiling to the programs with staining to several copies of South Pacific; Guys and Dolls is hole punched along the left margin, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is folded in half. Feynman was already regarded as the most brilliant, influential, and iconoclastic figure in his field when Marneus approached the theoretical physicist, who had been a member of the Caltech staff since 1949, about performing in a 1977 production of Guys and Dolls. Feynman recalled this moment in his irreverent memoir Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, “…at Caltech there’s a group that puts on plays. Some of the actors are Caltech students; others are from outside. When there’s a small part, such as a policeman who’s supposed to arrest somebody, they get one of the professors to do it. It’s always a big joke – the professor comes on and arrests somebody, and goes off again. A few years ago the group was doing Guys and Dolls, and there was a scene where the main guy takes the girl to Havana, and they’re in a nightclub. The director thought it would be a good idea to have the bongo player on the stage in the nightclub be me.” Feynman was known to be an enthusiastic bongo player, after having developed a passion for samba music during his 1951-52 sabbatical in Brazil. In her remembrance of Feynman for The California Tech, a campus weekly, Marneus recalled, “…immediately, he wanted to find out more about the stage, about acting, how to do it well, to really go for the principles of the form. And though his research, classes, conferences kept him on a rigorous schedule, he always made time to come back to TACIT, each time fresh yet more skilled, each time challenging himself. Finally, as the Sewer King in The Madwoman of Chaillot, he pulled off a little jewel of characterization – a mix of wry humour, weary insight, delicious dubiety determined that the ‘good guys’ in the play should at least have a chance to win. The subtleties and loving details of his performance, how he ‘saucered ‘n blowed’ his tea with an elegant lift to his pinkie finger, were noticed by a reviewer who praised his work. This worried him: ‘Now I gotta be good!’ He was. He was just the best. While he suffered no flatterers and few fools, his in-home courtesy was incredible. For instance, while he was rehearsing for Kismet, he was appointed to the President’s Commission on the Challenger explosion. He called me the same night to explain and to ask if I’d understand if he quit the show.”.
Price: $22,000.00