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Snippets from The Energy Show: Part I

Posted by DCA Theater on May 12, 2009 in Other, The Energy Show

Snippets from The Energy Show (Friday, June 5 in the Claudia Cassidy Theater—Click here for reservations) submitted by H. Peter Steeves

A young Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 to Rev. Milutin Tesla, a priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church, and Duka Mandic, herself the daughter of a priest.  Groomed to take a position in the church, Nikola was, from the start, more interested in the mechanics of nature rather than faith.  His only brother, Dane, was killed in a horseback-riding accident when Nikola was five years old.  Already, the boy was seeing flashing lights before his eyes, followed by hallucinations.  The scotoma followed him everywhere: to school, at home, at his brother’s burial.  Later in life, the flashing lights would trigger both visions of electrical inventions and flashbacks to his childhood.  His brother was buried and unburied countless times in these hallucinations, the pain lived and re-lived.  In 1878, Tesla broke off all relations with his family and disappeared.  It was generally assumed that he had drowned and was dead.  After enrolling in school and suffering a nervous breakdown, he dropped out after only one semester, taking up jobs as an electrical engineer here and there in a world without much electricity.  It was on June 6, 1884 that Tesla arrived in New York City.  He carried with him a letter of recommendation written by Charles Batchelor, his former employer.  The letter was addressed to Thomas Edison, and Batchelor wrote, “I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man.” Edison hired Tesla immediately, and the two soon became life-long enemies.