‘QED’ revived at Lantern Theater (second review)

You wouldn’t think that a theoretical physicist who wasn’t Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking would fit the bill, but in this way, among many others, Richard Feynman proves a surprise and a half. Feynman has a chance to tell his own story in Lantern Theater’s strong revival of QED, a mostly one-person show by Peter Parnell featuring Peter DeLaurier.

Feynman was one of those rare but delightful creatures, a rock star scientist. A Nobel Prize-winner for his work on quantum electrodynamics (the “QED” of the title), he was able to communicate his specialty and other topics through a series of books and lectures that proved quite popular with the general public. To carry the rock star analogy to its conclusion, Einstein would be Bob Dylan, Hawking would be Lennon and McCartney, and Feynman would be Paul Simon.

Like an old friend

The play takes place one night near the end of Feynman’s life, and he is basically talking to the audience as if he were addressing an old friend about things going on in his life, professionally, personally, and socially. We learn a little about his life, his work (including QED), that he is a widower who has remarried, that his health is failing and he’s not sure he has the courage to face imminent death alone, that he has a student named Miriam who inspires a certain “what if?” in him — as often happens with successful older men who are lonely and young women who admire them extravagantly.

Peter Parnell’s script does a fine job of showing us some of the reasons he was so popular with the public. For all his luminous intelligence, Feynman never lost track of the essential regular guy-ness that is such a requirement for popularity. Equally deft was M. Craig Getting’s welcome light hand with the direction. A heavy-handed director would weigh the production down with self-importance, making the play and the subject interminably boring; fortunately Getting mostly kept boring at bay.

But highest praise must go to actor Peter DeLaurier for his casually likable portrayal of Feynman who managed to keep things interesting even when discussing points of quantum theory. Equally likable was Clare Mahoney, a bright presence at the play’s beginning and end.

For Naomi Orwin’s review of QED, click here.