Feynman play QED opens in LA
Javier Marquez

The late Richard Feynman has been variously described as a bongo player, a safecracker, a hipster, and an intellectual. These are not the usual words that come to mind when describing a Caltech professor of physics. But by most accounts Feynman was a brilliant scientist and quirky educator, falling somewhere between Albert Einstein and Mr. Chips.

One of his defining characteristics, and what made him so memorable to the many people who knew him, was his insatiable curiosity. An intellectual magpie, Feynman was drawn to interesting bits of information that he would carefully gather and add to his glittering collection of knowledge. The more abstruse the nugget, it seemed, the better.

This inclination may have led to his interest in Tannu-Tuva, a republic sandwiched between Siberia and Mongolia. As recounted in Feynman and Ralph Leighton’s book Tuva or Bust!, upon learning the name of the Tuvinian capital, an intrigued Feynman remarked, “A place that’s spelled K-Y-Z-Y-L has just got to be interesting.” And so the adventure began.

Falling in love with Tuva was vintage Feynman. Also vintage were the lengths to which he went in order to satisfy his curiosity. His fascination with the rugged mountain nation led to a 10-year effort to learn everything about it. He determined to visit tiny Tuva, located on the other side of the world and a place that practically no one had ever heard of. For Feynman, the fact that it existed at all was reason enough to devote his attention it.

Feynman arrived at Caltech as a visiting professor in 1950 and joined the permanent faculty the following year. Along with his singular intellect, he brought an unconventional approach to teaching physics. He jazzed up the sedate lectures, preferring that his students learn by understanding rather than by rote. He also closed the cool distance between students and professors by mingling with the incoming freshman classes and participating in theatrical productions in Ramo Auditorium. Soon enough, in yearly polls, his students voted him their favorite professor.

Among his many achievements at Caltech, Feynman revolutionized quantum electrodynamics, or QED. He is credited with correcting faults in the science’s basic theory, reinterpreting quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics from his unique perspective. It was this work that earned him the Nobel Prize in 1965.

It’s no surprise that a play would be written about this extraordinary individual and the rich material that was his research and his life. The Center Theatre Group is presenting QED, a new play that will run at L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum for six weeks. Previews begin this month.

The two-person play stars Alan Alda as Feynman, and Allison Smith as a fictional student. Alda is a natural for the lead. Not only does he have an enthusiasm for science—he’s hosted the PBS show Scientific American Frontiers for more than seven years—he also projects an intelligent and unforced curiosity about the world, one that mirrors Feynman’s own. It was Alda who proposed the idea of a play about Feynman to Gordon Davidson, the director of QED, and Peter Parnell was eventually brought on board to write it.

A coproducer on the television series The West Wing, Parnell wrote a two-act play that aspires to portray Feynman reflecting on his life at Caltech. Besides winning several prestigious writing awards and grants in his career, Parnell’s credits include a stage adaptation of John Irving’s The Cider House Rules that was produced at the Taper in 1998.

Parnell was charged with the dual tasks of creating a believable Feynman, complete with his idiosyncrasies, while capturing the ineffable essence of Feynman’s genius. The question is, How successfully does his writing portray his subject’s intelligence, charisma, and singular creativity? His initial source material comprised the various anecdotes and comical stories in the books written about the professor.

“It’s inspired by the Feynman books, including the two well-known ones with Leighton as well as Tuva or Bust, but it also uses other Feynman writings,” Parnell said. “There’s a lot of documentation, but it was more about sifting through this material.” The two books are the boldly titled Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?

In the four years since Alda proposed the idea of writing the play, Parnell went through various drafts while experimenting on different approaches to telling the story. He also consulted Leighton, Feynman’s Caltech friends and students, and one of Feynman’s daughters. Feynman never got to see his Tuva; he died in 1988 of a rare abdominal cancer.

QED goes into previews on March 10, and opening night is March 22. Caltech students and employees may receive a discount of 25 percent off all available tickets for performances from March 11 to April 1 by calling the Taper’s ticket office at (213) 628-2772 and mentioning the code MCP1ET. Discount tickets must be ordered by March 9. The play runs through May 13. Further information and show times are available at www.taperahmanson.com.
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