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review "QED" = Alan Alda. The equation seems absurdly simple, but I swear it's true. The success of this Mark Taper Forum world premiere isn't about Peter Parnell's playwriting, or Gordon Davidson's deft direction. It's all about Alda -- his awesome talent, his chatty and engaging personality, and the delicious palm of his hand. "QED" really is Alan Alda's baby. In the mid-1990s, Alda approached Taper artistic director Davidson about adapting Ralph Leighton's "Tuva or Bust!" -- a biography of the eccentric physicist Richard Feynman -- into a play. Davidson liked the idea and suggested that Parnell, who was then adapting "The Cider House Rules", as the writer for the task. So "Tuva or Bust!" was scheduled for last season, then postponed and retitled "QED". Now, a play about a physicist sounds really boring. Unless, of course, that physicist is Richard Feynman. Sure, he worked on the Manhattan Project, and won the Nobel Prize for his work in quantum electrodynamics. But he was also an incomparable teacher during his 38 years at Caltech, and an incredible personality -- a tribal-drumming, nude-model-drawing bon vivant who felt as comfortable in a strip club as he did in a classroom. (His boy-genius years and tragic first marriage were chronicled in the movie "Relativity", starring Matthew Broderick and Patricia Arquette.) Feynman lived a big life, so it's startling to see his story told with a small play -- a two-character play on a realistic unit set. And it's almost a one-man show, for Alda appears alone for about 90 of the script's 105 minutes. We meet the 68-year-old Feynman in June 1986, near the end of his life. He's wrapped up another semester, and he's puttering around his cluttered Caltech faculty office (marvelously rendered by set designer Ralph Funicello). He's excited, because tonight he'll play the role of the tribal chief in the campus production of "South Pacific". Then, all of a sudden, he gets two surprises. He learns he's got to deliver a lecture at the Huntington Library in 72 hours on the topic of "What We Know". He also learns that the kidney cancer that nearly killed him in 1978 has come back. So Alda -- er, Feynman -- begins to talk to himself, and to us. He starts to outline his lecture, and starts to consider what we really know about life and the universe. And this leads into a series of memorable anecdotes and stories, as Feynman teaches us some physics and reflects on the course of his life. He's interrupted by phone calls from his oncologist, his wife, and his good friend Leighton (Dakin Matthews and Sue Cremin supply the voices). And then he gets a visitor: a young Pasadena City College student named Miriam Field (Allison Smith), who has taken his "Physics X" class just to see the legend at work. Alda is absolutely great -- greater, in fact, than the play. You could watch him forever, for he superbly communicates Feynman's every doubt and passion. You do begin to wonder, though, if the Taper's strategy with "QED" isn't to present a new play, but to milk the appeal of a familiar personality. "QED" isn't about plot; there's little of that. It's really about Alda connecting with an audience. Would the play work without Alda? Probably, but you begin to harbor doubts. You begin to entertain these doubts in the second act, in which it is revealed that the best way to pep up a dying man is to bring a hot redhead into the room. Feynman wonders aloud whether hope and faith really matter, and then Miriam returns -- not to confront Feynman about his beliefs and ideals, but basically to worship him and tell him to put on a happy face. Miriam is no foil for Feynman; she's a device to wrap up the plot. Amazingly, the play becomes less interesting when two actors are onstage. (This is not Smith's fault; a member of Cornerstone Theatre Company, she's a capable actress. The fact that the patron seated behind me thought she was a teenager plucked from a performing arts high school instead of an experienced Equity actress says much about the role she has to play.) Despite this fraudulent detour, "QED" is good fun. It's a crowd-pleasing production anchored by a great performance. One note of warning: "QED" is more or less Feynman for beginners. If you've read any of Feynman's writings, or any of the biographies and magazine profiles written about him, you're not going to learn anything new from this production. "QED" is Alan Alda telling Richard Feynman stories. The good news is, Alan Alda is as interesting as Feynman himself. "QED", Tu-Sun @ 8pm, Sat-Sun @2:30pm at the Mark Taper Forum, 135 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. $34-44. Thru May 13. 213.628.2772. Copyright © 2001 The Write Word, Inc. All rights reserved. |