The Universe According To Lily To Philadelphia, Lily Tomlin Brings Her Amazing, All-encompassing, Satirizing Tour De Force - And A Real Mix Of Characters, Including A Weight Lifter, Name Of Paul.

Lily Tomlin is sitting in the back seat of a chauffeured Lincoln Town Car, rolling down Walnut Street through the Philadelphia night. On her lap sits Tess, a tiny Norwich terrier, who is 84 in human years and making unfathomable noises for a dog so small and sweet.

Gerrrrraaaow! Gerrrrraaaow!

It sounds like an old woman's hacking cough, only more dangerous.

"Don't bite people, please, tootie," Tomlin implores, struggling to hold her pet.

Tomlin, this gentlest of American actresses, adores the cantankerous Tess. The terrier is 12 years old, but Tomlin tells everyone the dog is only 3. ''You know how women are," Tomlin says. "Tess really doesn't want me to be deceitful. But she and I decided after her third birthday we'd just stop there and say 3 to anyone who asked."

Tomlin takes Tess almost everywhere she goes. But Tess will not be dining tonight at Deux Cheminees, the French restaurant that has agreed to stay open late for the star.

Tomlin has just completed the opening-night preview performance of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, the triumphant one- woman play that officially opens at the Forrest Theater Tuesday night for its final month on the American stage - a play in which she attempts to feel everything, for all of us, satirize the 1980s and evoke all the hope and pain of the cosmos.

It is not an easy job.

In three physically punishing and relentless hours, Tomlin played more than a dozen male and female roles, every part in the play, with neither costumes nor props.

She played the young and old, macho men and lesbians, hookers and socialites, and a weight lifter named Paul. She played people loving, getting married, being divorced, cheated on, raped, communing with aliens, committing suicide and surviving. She laughed and hissed and growled and leaped, flung her arms triumphantly to the stars, curled into a fetal retreat, moved a full house to tears and gasps, a standing ovation, three curtain calls - even astonishment, when the actress stalked off the stage because the show wasn't perfect.

After the performance, Tomlin appeared at the stage door and waved to the dozen faithful who had waited in the cold alley for her.

"Hi, you all," she said, mingling in the crowd. "Thank you for coming to the first show - it was a little rough."