Strangers kiss, click in 'Heisenberg'
NEW YORK — It begins with a kiss, albeit one we don't see.
Simon Stephens' Heisenberg (*** out of four stars) opens in a London train station, right after Georgie, a woman in her early 40s, has planted her lips on the back of a strange man's neck. His name is Alex, and he's more than 30 years her senior. In the world-premiere production — which opened off-Broadway Wednesday at Manhattan Theatre Club's New York City Center — he's played by stage-and-screen vet Denis Arndt.
Georgie is played by the enduringly lovely Mary-Louise Parker. "It's fine," Alex assures her, post-smooch, as any fellow in his position might. "It's not," Georgie responds, and proceeds to make her case by peppering him with questions and observations, some of them quite rude.
Alex is put off but clearly intrigued, though it's Georgie who makes the next move. She admits, early on, to having lied to him about a few key details in telling her own story. But it becomes clear that her desperation is real — even after she has willed her way into Alex's life and tested the limits of his compassion.
Stephens, a two-time Olivier Award winner and current Tony nominee for The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-Time, doesn't judge either character. His dialogue in Heisenberg (which includes no mention of the German physicist seemingly referenced in the title) reveals two lonely people still trying to resolve old conflicts as they confront the new riddles posed by one another.
Both have moved to London from other places: Alex is from Ireland, Georgie from New Jersey. They have suffered different kinds of loss and alienation, but their need to connect is a shared one, and Stephens takes a forgiving, ultimately uplifting view of their stumbles and their progress.
The small, spare production, directed with wit and grace by Mark Brokaw, keeps both actors intensely in focus throughout. As she has done with other alluringly offbeat characters, Parker makes Georgie both seductive and irritating. If her delivery can at times border on the shrill, she is entirely credible as a well-preserved American woman of a certain generation.
Arndt's performance complements hers beautifully. His Alex is in ways just as mysterious as Georgie, a man whose strength and longing can sneak up on us as he's drawn out of his shell. "More often than not I just end up being disappointed with other people," he tells Georgie, but Arndt makes his yearning achingly palpable.
Georgie emerges with her own doubts. "I missed the point about everything," she says, near the end of the play. But she still has the rest of her life to figure things out, and so, Heisenberg reminds us, do we.