TIL 20 Oct

18
HEISENBERG: THE UNCERTAINTY
PRINCIPLE
Wyndhams
In a programme note for Simon
Stephens’s play Heisenberg, a Clinical
Scientist (so described) is asked by the
play’s director, Marianne Elliott, to
define, in simple terms, Werner
Heisenberg’s 1927 Uncertainty Principle.
‘If we measure the position of a particle
with ever greater precision,’ says the
expert, ‘then at some point we have to
accept a correspondingly increasing
impression in the measuring of the
particle’s momentum.’
Okay. So, cutting to the chase, what
this basically means is that chance,
uncertainty and unpredictability are all
built into the DNA of our universe. And
really, that’s all you need to know to get
the gist of this slender but entertaining
two-hander which was originally
premiered in New York in 2015. Or, as
one of the characters says about a Bach
sonata ‘Try to predict what will happen
next. It will take you completely by
surprise.’ Well yes, to a degree.
The music-loving character in
question is Alex Priest (Kenneth
Cranham), a rather reticent, 75 year-old
butcher wearing resignation and
disappointment as his twin badges. He
owns a shop in London that has seen
better days, while at home his life is
lonely and, well, boringly predictable.
Then one day – unpredictably – while
quietly sitting on a bench in London’s
St. Pancras station minding his own
business, he is given an impulsive kiss
on the neck by 42 year-old Georgie Burns
(Anne-Marie Duff), an extrovert,
contradictory, effusive American originally
from New Jersey but now working in
London as a school receptionist.
Both have suffered major losses in
their lives. Eighteen months ago
Georgie’s lover died of a heart attack,
Photo: Brinkhoff Mögenburg.
while her 19 year-old son upped and
went to America without leaving a
forwarding address.
Alex, we learn, lost his mother when
he was seventeen, his older sister while
still a child, and, saddest of all, his wife
in middle-age.
With loss as their common
denominator, they begin a seemingly
mismatched relationship awash with ups
and downs before, finally, six weeks
later, deciding to commit.
Despite the high-falutin’ Heisenberg
link which, we’re told, is the play’s
inspiration, we’re in typical romcom
territory involving such familiar items as
sex, money, compatibility, reliance,
doubt, trust, and on this occasion a
cavernous age gap.
The prolific Simon Stephens, whose
most acclaimed play to date is his
award-winning adaptation of Mark
Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident of
the Dog in the Night-Time, adds a dash
of pretentiousness and wish-fulfilment to
a cocktail some audiences may want to
leaven with a healthy pinch of salt.
Shaking it all up for our delectation is
director Elliott whose sensitive
understanding of Simon’s work has
previously (and dazzlingly) revealed
itself in The Curious Incident...and his
early play Port.
It’s a meticulous job.
Though it took me a while to accept
that there was real chemistry between
Alex and Georgie, (or maybe I should
say Cranham and Duff), I reluctantly
grew to embrace their relationship and
mutual dependence. As this 80-minute
play unfurls, both protagonists subtly
reveal some unpredictable facets of their
characters’ personalities, particularly
Cranham whose gradual transformation
from a fixed-in-his ways septuagenarian
to the more flexible, even fun-loving
man he must have been when he was
younger, finally won me over.
The unequivocal triumph of the
evening, though, is Bunny Christie’s
brilliantly flexible design.
Using a series of movable walls that
open and shut both horizontally and
diagonally, (at one point Georgie is
symbolically trapped between two of
them when they claustrophobically close
in on her) and employing some basic
pieces of furniture that neatly appear
(and disappear) from under the flooring,
Alex and Georgie’s world is also
hauntingly conveyed in a few bold
strokes enhanced by the intense blues,
reds, greens and variations thereof in
Paule Constable’s vivid lighting and Ian
Dickinson’s sparingly used but
atmospheric sound effects.
Heisenberg may not be the the most
challenging or even most intoxicating
brew on the London stage right now, but
it’s a welcome, often engaging addition
to the West End.
CLIVE HIRSCHHORN
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