You have to wonder about a 42-year-old woman so impulsive as to kiss the neck of an unknown 75-year-old man on a London train station bench.
But since British playwright Simon Stephens has been quoted as saying “Drama concerns itself only with the things people do to one another,” there’s a certain logic to the top of his quirky two-hander “Heisenberg,” playing through Feb. 13 at Scripps Ranch Theatre.
Stephens is perhaps best known in the U.S. for his 2012 play “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” which won both an Olivier and a Tony for Best New Play (and which will be presented this season at San Diego Repertory Theatre).
In 2015 he wrote “Heisenberg,” which premiered off-Broadway. The play is named after the German scientist who in 1927 came up with the principle that it is impossible to measure the position and momentum of a particle simultaneously with absolute precision.
Stephens illustrates this with a peculiar 75-minute rom-com in six scenes that is in turns edgy, insane, amusing, twitchy and even tender.
Georgie (Denae Steele) is a high-energy widowed grammar-school receptionist whose behavior alternates from lunacy to amusing to nosiness to genuine feeling. She has lost both a husband (to death) and son Jason, who left London for New Jersey and has never returned. Georgie wants to bankroll a trip in search of her lost son. Does she just want to use Alex or is a genuine relationship growing as time goes by?
Charlie Riendeau brilliantly portrays septuagenarian Alex, a butcher by trade, a loner by choice, who moves from suspicious to confused and from amused to a genuine affection for the young whirlwind Georgie. He takes his real pleasure in music (you name the type, he listens to it), and when she asks about it, tells her that music does not exist in the notes but “in the space between the notes.”
Steele may drive you as crazy with her frenzied, ADHD-like approach to conversation as she did me (and Alex), but it’s in the script, so just relax and watch what happens.
Never mind that the setup here is questionable, nor that the old saw that opposites attract might not in reality reach these two. Just go along with the explosions and enjoy the quieter moments.
Director Charles Peters gets the best out of Riendeau, a local theater staple who has been absent from the stage too long. He has just the right look and attitude for Alex.
Stage directions state that “the stage should be as bare as possible.” Accordingly, Nathan Waits is credited with set construction (a few wooden pieces only), but no set designer is named. Neither is a costumer. This show is not about place or clothes; it’s about the effect these two will have on each other.
Kudos to Steve Murdock and Mitchell Simkovsky for their respective sound and lighting designs.
“Heisenberg” is unusual, to say the least, but recommended for the adventurous theatergoer.
“Heisenberg” plays through February 13, 2022 at Scripps Ranch Theatre, at Alliant International University’s Legler Benbough Theatre, 9783 Avenue of Nations, San Diego.
Showtimes: Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m.
Tickets: (858) 395-0573 or scrippsranchtheatre.org
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