ARDEN BERCOVITZ Arden Bercovitz will travel to schools and give free shows on Oahu and the Big Island to portray Albert Einstein.

Einstein on
the beach

Arden Bercovitz ditches
endocrinology for a career
portraying the scientist

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By Scott Vogel
svogel@starbulletin.com

He's no Einstein, but ... well, yes, he is.

Arden Bercovitz started out life as a reproductive endocrinologist, earning a Ph.D. degree in the subject, and might have spent an eternity in specialized-science obscurity but for a chance discovery in 1985 that sent his satellite spinning in the direction of performance and motivational speaking. That discovery occurred at a Toastmasters meeting, where Bercovitz learned there was a demand, believe it or not, for speakers who could impersonate historical figures.

Now, after portraying Einstein for almost 15 years ("I'm an overnight success," he jokes) and entertaining crowds as varied as school kids and Fortune 500 executives, Bercovitz has left reproductive endocrinology behind. Playing the fuzzy-haired genius with a thing for relativity has been good to him, so good that it's become a full-time job. As he prepared for his second isle trip -- his sponsor once again the outreach program at the Big Island's Gemini Observatory -- Bercovitz had nothing but praise for the program and the students it reaches.

"They are very, very keen on stimulating an interest in science and math," he said, "and on bringing a real flavor for what it is to do that as a career to students, of generating public interest and support for the incredible science that is really in your back yard. It's not done somewhere else, it's done right where you folks live. And Gemini is going to need future employees. Why should they go somewhere else, and why should people on the islands have to go somewhere else for their career?"

To that end the observatory brings over speakers whose careers are based on the premise that science is far from a dull, pointy-headed pursuit.

"If you were to look up Einstein, you'd go to an encyclopedia, then you'd read a biography. You'd read mostly what he did," Bercovitz said. "There would be a collection of facts, figure and dates, and quite honestly, there is no juice there. It's interesting historically, but there is no life in that descriptive information.

"What I have done for many, many years is tap into and share some of that excitement of discovery. I have been a scientist; I know what that is."

The last time Bercovitz-Einstein came, he only went to Hilo. This time, he'll visit schools on Oahu and the Big Island, and he'll be giving three public performances to which the curious of all ages are invited.

"I especially like a diverse audience. It might be parents and children, or it might be an all-staff meeting at a large company. Whether it's the mailroom or the boardroom, a very diverse audience seems to take the message in and fit it to their own example."

And while Einstein's life and theories appear at first glance to be of little use to the average person, Bercovitz's Toastmasterized version repackages the German thinker into a strudel that's universally tasty.

"I talk about his father giving him a compass at the age of 5, and that really was a turning point for Einstein. When he was 5, things were very different. Any toy that had movement had a crank on it; there were no batteries. So Einstein gets this compass, nothing attached. The needle still moving and sensitive to something else was such a moment for him. It was an epiphany. He had to find out how that worked."

And then he had to find out how electromagnetism worked, and then finally the universe itself, which led to those wonderfully complex, much-maligned theories of relativity. From the gift of a simple compass came a "lifelong career of discovering some of nature's secrets and simplifying the universe."

Bercovitz hopes his show, complete with its techniques of simplification, will prove a compass for his audience.

'Einstein, Relatively Speaking' Featuring Arden Bercovitz When: 7 p.m. tomorrow at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Art Building Auditorium; 7 p.m. April 19 at the UH-Hilo Theater in Hilo; 6 p.m. April 21 at King Kamehameha Hotel in Kona Cost: Free Call: 974-2603

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