A friend and I went to see the new play about Richard Feynman, called QED. Alan Alda was cast as Dick Feynman.
The set had excellent detail. The furniture, the carpet, the phone and answering machine were authentic. I work at Caltech, where the play is set. I've seen offices that look like the set. Even the phone - that weird tan color, stiff push buttons, and the answering machine (before the current Audix system). The phone number was even authentic! The play takes place over the course of one Saturday, and the lighting did a good (but unobtrusive) job of changing shadows.
I never met Dick Feynman; he died in 1988 and I didn't come to Caltech until 1993. I have read his non-physics books, my ex-husband was an astrophysicist and I met plenty of people who did know Dick Feynman. I think Alan Alda did a great job of portraying him. Alda juggled 3 balls to demonstrate some point, he threw a frisbee around - later in the play, he played frisbee with the other character and continued his dialogue. He was quite credible in his delivery.
But here is where it fell apart: the drumming.
From all the books and articles and record covers I have read and the video I've seen, Dick Feynman was a bongo drummer. Bongos are from cuba. They are a small pair of drums attached to each other. You can either sit on the ground and play them, or you can sit on a chair and hold them between your knees to play them. Here's a photo of a woman playing the bongos.
Alda entered the stage carrying and pounding on a djembe! Djembes are a large single headed drum, you mostly see them in drum circles or at the beach. Check out the guy with the large drum!
I realize that this is a world premiere of the show, similar to a full dress rehearsal. But they need to work out some solution to the drum problem. I leave any comments about the flow of the play to my friend the critic (plot? motivation?) but felt that the drumming could not pass uncommented.
