SPENDING AN EVENING WITH A GENIUS.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

Lay aside, for a moment, the man's infinite store of knowledge, scientific prowess and all the atomic bomb building, Nobel Prize-winning accolades they earned him. Perhaps the greatest skill possessed by the late Caltech physicist Richard P. Feynman - if those who knew him are to be believed - was his ability to make his students feel like their questions and theories were as relevant and as welcome as his own, that it didn't make a bit of difference that Feynman was the smartest man in the room. This is a guy who, when an artery burst during surgery, got transfused with 80 units of blood donated by his students - there's a man I want to meet.

That man may be on stage at the Mark Taper Forum, but he's partially buried under the dramatically awkward, over-explicating weight of Peter Parnell's script. More a greatest-hits tribute than a work of drama, ``QED,'' directed by Gordon Davidson and starring Alan Alda as Feynman, bathes us in the warm glow of a brilliant man's benevolent kookiness. This makes for more a comfortable evening than a particularly challenging one.

We're in the good professor's disheveled office at Caltech on a June evening. A bongo-drum accompanied rendition of ``There Is Nothin' Like a Dame'' from ``South Pacific'' announces the arrival of Richard Feynman who scampers in, bongo in hand, like he has 75 tasks to accomplish but can only remember about 50 of them. There's a lecture to prepare for Monday on the subject of ``what we don't know''; there's checking out good friend Ralph Leighton's progress on a journey to the remote Siberian province of Tannu Tuva; there are Russian visitors to schmooze, drums to practice and that evening's performance of ``South Pacific'' to perform. (Feynman's playing the chief of Bali Ha'i. He digs the scene-stealing walk-on parts.) And a comely student (played by Allison Smith) from one of his classes keeps arriving, hoping to ask an important question that has nothing to do with quantum electrodynamics.

In between the multitasking, Feynman takes and returns several phone calls - from the project manager investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and from his doctors who have bad news. Interspersed is a shambling, nonsequential monologue, addressed to the audience as though we were attending a lecture. Feynman discusses his life, losses and beliefs, unraveling and dissecting his own questions almost as quickly as he poses them. He talks about the Manhattan Project and about the loss of his first wife, Arline, to tuberculosis. We get anecdotes aplenty, many of which are quite funny.

Call it a two-hour round of ``Feynman Says.'' The professor makes a declaration - ``nature can't be fooled'' is a particular favorite - then proceeds to turn it over and work it out, often applying an event from his own life as a test case. But Feynman Says is a one-sided game because ``QED'' doesn't supply anyone for Feynman to bounce his theories off. One-sided arguments over the phone don't count.

Too often, Parnell - whose script is based on Feynman's writings and Leighton's book ``Tuva or Bust!'' - doesn't seem to trust the audience enough to do the interpretive work. Speaking to his wife, Gweneth, Feynman laughs at her suggestion that he ``has to have hope.'' ``You know that's not me,'' he tells her. Then he hangs up and lays out his beliefs on hope and why he doesn't have it. Bad move. Why bludgeon us with messages?

It's a credit to Alda's abilities that he can maintain's Feynman's charisma even when he's trying to call it into question. As snugly as the role fits the actor, the performance feels like a valentine rather than a straight impersonation. Nor can it be easy for the man who played Hawkeye Pierce for so many years to take on yet another beloved character. I'm convinced Alda did his career a favor when he started playing outright jerks. Here he's closer to saintliness again, but he's still a pleasure to watch.

Parnell, Davidson and Alda went through several versions of ``QED'' before arriving at the current version. A more dramatically interesting take might lean more heavily on a restless scholarly mind confronting his own medical condition as yet another puzzle to be solved. Of course, that particular play has already been written. It's called ``Wit,'' it won the Pulitzer Prize and it will be the single most-produced play in America this season and a film version will premiere on HBO Saturday night.

Whether ``QED'' has that kind of a shelf life remains to be seen. Certainly, the Feynman legacy remains immortal. But we knew that going in.

``QED''

Where: Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday; through May 13.

Tickets: $30 to $44. Call [phone].

Our rating: Three stars.

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Photo: Alan Alda plays physicist Richard Feynman in ``QED,'' now at the Mark Taper Forum through May 13.