QED, Actors Summit Theatre, Starring Neil Thackaberry, Directed by Wayne S. Turney

It is always a pleasure to be able to direct so accomplished an actor as Neil Thackaberry. He was particularly well suited to take on this brainy character. This was a particular delight since it gave me a chance to return to my home of thirty years and direct a piece that is one of the best written little plays of the last decade. A thorough treat.

My Director's note:
There is no more fascinating American of the 20th Century than the subject of tonight's play. Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman absolutely broke the mold. Before the phrase became current, he was thinking so far "outside the box" that he literally re-invented the way scientists think. His approach to theoretical physics--and his theoretical accomplishments in the field of physics--are at least as significant as those of the more well-known Einstein. But tonight's story is not just about the brilliance of a theoretical mind; it is about the human being in whose fragile and ailing body that passionate and complex mind resided. It is a truly human story in the best sense. The great man had some very human flaws and some very funny quirks among the quarks and gluons and photons ricocheting around in his fertile brain. And QED raises some, as Feynman would say, very IN-TER-EST-ING questions.

But I believe tonight's play is significant for another very important reason. It pains me to say it, but few, if any, of the artists of our era are likely to be remembered in ages to come. For all their current popularity, many of the current crop of artists, including the playwrights, won't be household names in a century or two. How many of us read or rush out to see a play b Clyde Fitch there days? The work of our scientists--the men and women who made it possible for Mankind to set foot on the moon and peer deep inside the atom--will be remembered "while memory holds a seat in this distracted globe..." If the purpose of the theatre is "to hold, as 'twere, a mirror up to Nature," very few of our playwrights have held the mirror up to the most fascinating figures of our age, the scientists. This little play helps to fill the void that so often exists between the artistic and the scientific communities.

Rest assured, you don't need to know a th ing about quantum electrodynamics (QED) or even what e=mc2 means to to enjoy QED (though if you do, you'll get even more out of what is a remarkably well put-together script). At one point tonight, you'll hear Feynman raise questions about the utility of "hope." My hope is that you'll enjoy this glimpse of what succeeding generations will find fascinating about our era.

A smattering of the reviews:
Cleveland Jewish News Friday. Jan 19, 2007
Thackaberry dazzles in one-man showNeil Thackaberry plays physicist Richard Feynman in "QED," a bio-drama now at Actor's Summit.
Reviewed by FRAN HELLER, Contributing Writer

Richard Feynman was one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century.
He won the Nobel Prize in 1965 for his groundbreaking work in quantum electrodynamics. He worked on the Manhattan Project and helped develop the world's first atomic bomb. Feynman is best known for solving the mystery of the 1986 Challenger disaster and demonstrating his findings on national television. (He explained how the infamous "O" ring lost its resiliency in freezing water.)

The Jewish physicist is the subject of "QED," a fascinating bio-drama by Peter Parnell that explores the life of a true Renaissance man. It's at Actors' Summit through Jan. 28.

Keeping an audience enthralled for more than two hours in what is essentially a one-man show (with a brief appearance by another character) is a challenge for any actor. Neil Thackaberry triumphs in meeting that challenge with a dazzling performance that gets to the soul and spirit of the man he portrays.

It's a tour de force for the veteran actor as well as a treat for his captivated audience.

"QED" was inspired by Feynman's own writings and by Tuva or Bust!, written by his friend and colleague Ralph Leighton. Filled with humor and pathos, poetry and wisdom, the play is vastly entertaining and, at times, deeply moving.

The action takes place in Feynman's cluttered office at CalTech, where Feynman spent the bulk of his illustrious career. It is 1986, two years before Feynman's death at age 69.

The exuberant professor is preparing a lecture he will deliver while practicing his bongo drums for a walk-on stint in a university production of "South Pacific." As Feynman rambles from one subject to another, he is interrupted by a string of phone calls, mostly from his doctors who are urging him to undergo another surgery for his recurrent cancer.

While Feynman ponders his own mortality, he flits from quarks, gluons and quantum electrodynamic theory (the QED of the title) to Tuva, a tiny country in Central Asia he and Ralph want to visit, and the wrenching loss of his beloved first wife Arlene.

An eccentric prankster and self-described womanizer, Feynman took delight in breaking the rules, cracking safes for fun, and painting female nudes.

Bouncing around his office like a charged electron, Thackaberry captures the boundless enthusiasm and insatiable curiosity of a man who found everything in life - from theoretical physics and topless bars to his own life-threatening cancer - interesting. Or, as Feynman would put it, accenting each of the syllables, "in-ter-est-ing."

Wayne S. Turney's lively direction keeps Thackaberry directly engaged with the audience in an intimate conversation that never slackens.

Feynman describes to an eager student how his work in quantum electrodynamics began with the wobble of a plate, like a Frisbee. Jocelyn Roueiheb makes the most of the slight, somewhat awkward role of the student who shares Feynman's passion for science and lust for life.

The play is at its most lyrical when Feynman rhapsodizes about nature. "Nature," he says, "does not reveal her secrets easily, but if you ask the right questions, she will always answer."

The script does sag in places. A letter Feynman writes to his wife and reads aloud years after she has died is particularly maudlin.

Feynman was the youngest member on the Manhattan Project team. He describes, with visible excitement, the scientists' thrill at solving the puzzle of the atomic bomb, without regard to future consequences. His mood and tone turn darkly somber as he contemplates, years later, what havoc a bomb would wreak on the island of Manhattan.

Thackaberry's ability to constantly shift gears from cheerful buoyancy to sharp pain and teary sadness gives the play emotional and dramatic heft.

The professor faces his own death with the same curiosity and courage with which he embraced the mysteries of science. The biographical play not only explores the mind of a genius, but the heart of a human being with profound lessons for our own lives.

Even the tutorial in physics is fun!

Kelly Clawson: From Page to Stage
REVIEW: PHYSICIST LARGER THAN LIFE AT ACTORS' SUMMIT
Anyone who thought scientists were just dry, nerdy, solitary types should take a look at Actors' Summit's QED to learn about the highly colorful Richard Feynman, an exuberantly eccentric, real-life American physicist.
As director Wayne Turney said, this guy did break the mold: The famous Nobel Laureate who reinvented how physicists think worked on the atom bomb and served on the federal commission that investigated the space shuttle Challenger disaster.
But Feynman also was a thespian and a bongo drummer, and developed a wacky obsession for the Russian land of Tuva.
The story takes place in Feynman's office at the California Institute of Technology in 1988. Feynman - who is musing over his life as he contemplates death - is continually interrupted by phone calls and visitors.
This is largely a one-man show, and actor/artistic director Neil Thackaberry is up to the part. Although at times he appeared to be grasping for some of his lines opening weekend, the problem disappeared by the second act.
Thackaberry does larger-than-life very well. His booming voice and arresting stage presence are his hallmarks. Thackaberry also is no stranger to portraying historical characters (John Brown) or doing one-man shows: He did exceedingly well two years ago in the one-man comedy Fully Committed.
But Thackaberry is too young for this role: Feynman was 68 when this story took place. Feynman also is supposed to be having trouble adapting to a body that's breaking down. Although the character talks about his ailments, we don't get a feeling of physical frailty from Thackaberry, who has a powerful build and healthy appearance.
Actress Jocelyn Roueiheb does have several choice moments onstage as student Miriam Field, but about 90 percent of the show is Thackaberry's. Some of the show's funniest moments occur with extended conversations between professor and student through a closed door.
The sexual tension portrayed between Feynman and his student gave me the heebie jeebies. But that's just the sort of guy Feynman purportedly was: He once served as a defense witness for the owner of a topless bar that he frequented.
I can just picture him writing physics equations on a napkin while watching the "entertainment."
It's good to see Turney - previously an Actors' Summit regular - back in a guest directing role from DeSales University outside Allentown, Penn.
Feynman's chalkboard mantra was "What I cannot create I don't understand."
For those who may worry that this play may be too science-oriented, don't worry about any genius jargon. The character Feynman spends most of his time talking about his varied interests, his relationships and colorful anecdotes from his career, which are painted in broad strokes.
At one point, as Feynman talks about the properties of light, he alludes to how "the angle incidence equals angle of refraction." Most people would remember that from their high school physics books, but Feynman doesn't even use terms as technical as that.
As his character talks about physics, Thackaberry breaks the fourth wall, talking directly to the audience and even interacting with my neighbor by throwing a ball to him. The gentleman seemed tickled, but, alas, dozed off later.
Turney's goal in presenting the play is to shed light on one of our nation's pioneer scientists, while at the same time bridging the divide between the artistic and scientific communities.
Although my mind wandered a couple of times during the show, what struck me most about this piece was that Feynman was a renaissance man who bridged that gap just that by being himself.

Two dramas challenge the nature of reality
Reviews: Cleveland Public Theatre and Actors' Summit
Friday and Saturday, Jan. 12 and 13

By Tony Brown
Plain Dealer Theater Critic

Nothing less than the nature of reality was up for discussion over the weekend in Northeast Ohio premieres at a pair of off-Euclid theaters.

Reality, according to "Sleep Deprivation Chamber," which opened over the weekend at Cleveland Public Theatre, exists both in the hard-and-fast physical world and in the subconscious mind that processes it.

And in "QED" at Actors' Summit in Hudson, physicist Richard Feynman declares that we can never know reality, but can only theorize about it.

"Sleep" concerns a 1991 racial profiling case in Alexandria, Va.

An officer in the tony Washington, D.C., suburb stopped Adam Kennedy, a black man. He pulled his car into a driveway, confronted the cop, took a beating and was charged with assault.

Here's what the officer didn't know: The driveway was at Kennedy's father's house; and Kennedy's mother, Adrienne, is a prominent New York playwright.

Mother and son wrote separately. Adam stuck to the facts.

Adrienne takes a dreamlike approach, conflating the case with "Hamlet," the 1992 premiere in Cleveland of her "The Ohio State Murders," memories of growing up here and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

The marriage of these viewpoints creates a frisson that keeps the energy flowing for the play's 90 minutes. That said, it could use editing, particularly in Adam's detailed recollections.

It's hard to imagine a better staging of the play than Caroline Jackson Smith's stark, expansive use of the grand old Gordon Square Theatre, lighted dramatically by designer Trad A Burns.

Jackson Smith deftly manipulates a nine-member ensemble while three others turn in strong individual performances, led by Lisa Langford's stunning evocation of the playwright at her desk trying to work out her demons.

Continues through Saturday, Jan. 27, at 6415 Detroit Ave., Cleveland. $10-$18. 216-631-2727.

Quirks and quarks

Smaller but just as challenging, Peter Parnell's "QED" takes us to the Cal Tech office of Feynman, a Nobel Prize-winning pioneer of quantum electrodynamics, a member of the team that invented the atomic bomb, a bongo player and a practical joker.

It's a fascinating examination of a quirky guy who didn't mince words, particularly as a co-author of a report on the Challenger disaster. Quarks and photons fly, and so do ideas about existence and defining it.

And it's a chance for an actor to command a stage in near-solitude (a student shows up a few times) as a huge personality (as did Alan Alda in New York).

Actors' Summit artistic director Neil Thackaberry acquits himself well under the steady, sure direction of Wayne Turney.

Thackaberry stumbles a few times on the play's voluminous and complex language but touches us with Feynman's exuberance about the southern Siberian state of Tuva, his lasting love for his dead wife and his own battle with the cancer that would eventually kill him in 1988.

OUTSTANDING ‘QED’ AT ACTORS’ SUMMIT
Roy Berko (Member, American Theatre Critics Association)
THE TIMES NEWSPAPERS

Lorain County Times--Westlaker Times--Lakewood News
Times--Olmsted-Fairview Times

I’m about to tell you that a lecture about physics makes for fascinating theatre.

You might think, “This reviewer has gone off the deep end.” Whether the latter statement is true or not isn’t the issue. The fact remains that physics, cancer treatment and musical theatre blended with marvelous acting and focused directing, does make for an enticing evening of theatre. Where? It’s on stage Actors’ Summit which is presenting Peter Farnell’s play ‘QED’ about Richard Feynman, the renowned physicist, professor and Nobel Prize winner.

QED stands for Quantum Electrodynamics, which was Feynman's field. QED is also the abbreviation for 'quod erat demonstrandum,' which basically means 'that proves it.' And what Farnell proves is not only that Feynman was a genius, who was part of the team that
developed the atomic bomb, but a person of enormous warmth, creativity and passion. He was a real person who was as at home at the blackboard figuring out abstract formulas as playing the King of Bali Hai in a college production of ‘SOUTH PACIFIC.’

Alan Alda portrayed Feynman in both the Los Angeles and Broadway productions of ‘QED.’ A review stated of his Big Apple performance, “Alda's everyman demeanor is perfectly suited to this play; he is capable of winning over the audience immediately and guiding them, with a gentle hand, through what might otherwise be impossibly difficult subject matter. It is, however, always Feynman onstage. Alda has no problem vanishing into the character of Feynman here, with his
manic mannerisms and strong adaptation to the ‘stream of consciousness’ style of Parnell's script.”

The reviewer could have penned those words about Neil Thackaberry’s performance. His is a tour de force enactment.

Under Wayne Turney’s capable directing, Thackaberry spends his almost one-and-a half hours on stage in what is close to a solo piece, talking to the audience, yakking on the phone and briefly interacting with a female student (Miriam, capably portrayed by Jocelyn Roueiheb), who may be as interested in him as an intellect as a potential sex mate.

Throughout, we remain fascinated. We are compelled to share in his intimate decisions about whether or not to have yet another operation to curb his raging cancer, his dealings with a group of visiting Russian dignitaries, and his performance in the musical.

CAPSULE JUDGEMENT: Actors’ Summit seems to deal exceptionally well with solo shows. Their ‘CLARENCE DARROW: A ONE MAN SHOW,’ which starred Thackaberry
and ‘GIVE ‘EM HELL HARRY,’ which starred Turney, the play’s director, were both outstanding. Add ‘QED’ to that list! This is a must see performance.