How Opposites Attract

Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle

Prolific British playwright Simon Stephens has written a number of excellent adaptations of other writers’ works, as well as several original plays. Often these works have perplexing and tantalizing titles. Stephen’s excellent, award-winning dramatic adaptation of Mark Haddon’s novel, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time,” is one such interesting title. In Griffin Theatre’s latest production we have a one-act play, curiously named for German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg. It’s a two-character drama, with some comic moments, that’s about how opposites attract. 

The famous, Nobel Prize-winning scientist never actually appears in this play, but Georgie, one of the two characters, references his theory of quantum mechanics. She quotes Heisenberg, saying that we cannot know both the position and speed of a particle at the same time with perfect accuracy, or what the physicist called “The Uncertainty Principle.” That idea of unpredictability is expanded here to include the spark that happens when two totally dissimilar people encounter one another. 

Alex is an elderly butcher who has always lived a quiet, uneventful existence in London all his life. When Georgie, a middle-aged American, spots the older gentleman sitting alone on a bench in a train station, she quietly approaches Alex and kisses him on the neck. This obviously startles the man provoking, at first, an awkward, abrupt conversation between them. But then Georgie strangely persists, and what eventually transpires during the next 95 minutes, is a deep relationship between two very unlikely individuals. Alex’s suspicions gradually melt away and Georgie’s quirky, but affectionate personality induces the older man to reveal more and more of himself. We eventually come to realize that Georgie can’t be trusted because she’s given to lying about her life. Alex finds it difficult to know what to believe. But eventually he discovers the real Georgie and her true motivation for starting up this unusual relationship, and it comes as a shock. But soon Alex accepts Georgie’s motives, and it’s in the drama’s quieter moments that this play truly excels, supporting Alex’s comment that music exists between the notes and in the silences. The trickery that initially prompted Georgie’s meeting Alex slowly and gently becomes something far more sensitive and special for them both.

Tastefully directed with economy of movement and setting by Nate Cohen, the production features two excellent, topnotch  actors. Scott Anderson is appropriately withdrawn and cautious as Alex. His reactions to the strange and unsettling events that transpire between this reserved, older Brit and the gutsy, almost manic younger American are quite natural. Laura Coover portrays a full range of contrasting emotions as Georgie. One moment she’s sly and mysterious; in another beat she’s bubbly and almost adolescent. By the final scene we see the real young woman laying it all on the line. But, Georgie’s alternative motives aside, Ms. Coover’s character does succeed in breaking down the walls that Alex has built to protect himself from more disappointment. Eventually he finds the younger, friskier Alex deep inside himself who’s forgotten how to enjoy life and revel in romance.

This is a sweet story, almost a a fantasy, in some ways. A May-to-December love story isn’t the typical subject of most dramas, but then this isn’t a typical play. In Simon Stephens’ tightly constructed one-act, it actually works. This intergenerational romance skillfully paints a portrait of how opposites can, and  sometimes do, attract.         

Recommended

Reviewed by Colin Douglas

Presented February 23-March 26 by the Griffin Theatre Company at Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark Street, Chicago.

Tickets are available in person at the Raven box office, by calling 773-338-2177 or by going to www.griffintheatre.com.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.