Shirley Marneus, right, gives a post-
performance critique to Alan Alda, left,
as Ed Lewis, Caltech’s Morgan Professor
of Biology, Emeritus, looks on.

Feynman on stage

Shirley Marneus, director of Theater Arts at Caltech (TACIT), became friends with Richard Feynman over the 10 years he performed in Caltech productions. Here she offers her views on QED, the current play based on Feynman’s life.

About two years ago, Alan Alda and Gordon Davidson, artistic director of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, got together to produce a play about Richard Feynman at the Taper. Davidson and Peter Parnell, the playwright, came to campus to talk to me about Dick’s involvement in Caltech theater, which they had heard about from Ralph Leighton. They asked to see Ramo Auditorium, because they wanted to see where Dick had performed, and we went over there and talked. I told a few stories about Feynman’s time in the theater, and they used some of that in the play, QED.

I thought Alan Alda gave a wonderful performance in QED. Obviously he has studied the films and photos, heard the recordings, and read the stories, but beyond that, he shows an intuitive understanding of the character that transcends what he has to work with in the script. He has the dazzling energy, the focus, and the charm—and with Feynman that’s big-time charm. He’s not Feynman and he doesn’t try to be—it’s an interpretation, not an impersonation—but he does capture the essence of his personality. When he cradles his head in his arms or talks about the death of his first wife, Arline, or his father’s death, and his voice trails off into silence, there are depths suggested in these silences. This is very powerful stuff in the theater—someone is having deep insights, but it’s we, the audience, who are internalizing them and completing the process. It’s a measure of Alda’s faith in his audience that he trusts us to fill in the blanks.

There’s enough science in the show to intrigue the people who see it and ease them into reading more about Feynman and his work. Dick once told me, “I wrote QED [his book for laypeople on the “strange theory of light and matter”] for people like you. Do you understand it?” I told him that while I was reading it, I had the illusion that I understood it, and that was good enough for me, but that he shouldn’t ask me to explain it. “Oh,” he said, “then I’m not good enough.” Because he took pains with that kind of thing. He wanted physics and the excitement and discipline that goes into it to be accessible. Feynman was incredibly disciplined. He liked to present himself as this rowdy character, but inside there was this hard, clear core. I wish the play brought this out more—at times, Alda, if not the script, does give us a glimpse of this side of the man.

This play is what I call an audience pleaser. The first act works on every level, but when you get to the second act and his encounter with the female physics student from Pasadena City College, it may be that they’re trying too hard to please. I found the actress and her role disappointing. I mean, does this man really decide to have do-or-die surgery because a young woman comes into his office a little drunk, takes off her shoes, and dances for him? Maybe that’s how some people make decisions. But I’m dubious; I think there was more to it than that.

But the play does seem to be a work in progress; I hear there’s some talk of taking it to New York. If there are changes, I hope they will be in the direction of making the play a bit harder and more dry—overall, less comfortable for the audience. There is a hint of this in one lovely short section where Dick is on the phone with his wife, Gweneth. He’s talking about the surgery and his prognosis. She tells him that he has to have hope. He replies, “What do you mean, I should have hope? Hope? That’s not me.” That’s the real Feynman—beyond the gestures and the anecdotes.

What was Dick himself like as an actor? We’re not talking Paul Scofield here, but I have seen professional actors who were not as good. He was a wonderful performer who would have been a delight in any community theater. He was so flexible and creative—full of ideas about his parts and always eager to hear what others had to say. I’d be sitting in my office and he’d stick his head in the door and say, “Shirley, I got this idea. Let’s go have soup and talk.”

Dick’s first experience in the theater was as a bongo player in Caltech’s production of Guys and Dolls, and it was then that he said, “How come nobody ever told me about this drama stuff before? It’s fun!” He would have liked to do more with TACIT, and I would have loved to have stretched him more as an actor, but his time was usually so limited. I was able to cast him in two fairly substantial parts—as Matthew Skips, the town bum, in The Lady’s Not for Burning, and as the Sewer Man, a rather mysterious, charismatic character in The Madwoman of Chaillot. Obviously, they played to his strengths, and he was memorable in both. He was always comfortable and confident on stage, but he knew these were good roles and he really worked at them.

Dick’s last TACIT appearance was in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. We had a custodians’ kick-line in that show, but he said, “I’m throwing it in, Shirley; I’m not a good kicker anymore.” He did go on as one of the custodians, but instead of kicking, he grabbed the wastebasket and drummed. And when the next year rolled around—it was late 1987—I called him to do Oliver and he said, “No, I don’t think so this time, Shirley.” And I said, “Okay, next year.” And he said, “I don’t think so, Shirley.” And I said, “Dick?” And he said, “Yeah.” And—there was a silence.
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