Queerguru’s Andrew Hebden reviews HELSENBERG ‘Complex and surprising, highly demanding for the performers, and deeply rewarding for the audience.’

Heisenberg ****

Arcola Theatre

Heisenberg, directed by Katharine Farmer and written by Simon Stephens is an extraordinarily worthwhile challenge. Both to the performers and the audience.  At first, it throws up the question, what is this? As it starts with a perplexing absurdity. And at one point, there is an AHA moment! This is what it is! Which turns out to be wrong, almost. It’s a riveting battle of narrative and emotional uncertainty. And very, very good.

The absurdity it begins with is a kiss on the neck. Alex (Jenny Galloway) is minding her own business, doing her favourite thing. At 75 years old Alex is listening to music and observing life, rather than participating in it. She is suddenly kissed on the neck by a strange woman, Georgie (Faline England). It’s invasive, potentially threatening, but largely confusing. Georgie tumbles into a clumsy explanation. She is in mourning. She is overwrought. She is drawn to Alex. She is impossible to understand. Her words are distracting, falling from her lips like the misdirections of  a street conjuror. She talks about her dead husband. Her job as a waitress. Alex is observant, unwilling to be drawn in but stoic rather than fearful. They share some details, including their names.

Georgie appears at Alex’s butcher shop soon after, finding her through Google. Is this what this play is about? A crazy stalker? She reveals that everything she told Alex at first was a lie. Aha, it’s a thriller! No. Wrong. Georgie’s intentions are romantic. She is here to confess, pained that she turned their first meeting into a sham. And so romance begins, despite Georgie being 33 years younger than Alex. They meet up. They share intimacies. They make love. And then Georgie makes the bombshell Request. Here it is. Now it becomes clear what this is all about. Or is it?

England’s Georgie is infuriating. A liar. A mess. A tornado of words. A dreamer. A breath of fresh air. A con or a mystery. In her own words she behaves in a way that pushes people away, as they inevitably will leave her, so she prefers to speed up the process. England dangles absurdity, reminiscent of Catherine O’Hara’s Moira Rose from Schitt’s Creek, but is the right side of ridiculous. There are a surprising number of laughs in the play, but the writing and the acting elevates the comedy of humanity over the merely comic. Galloway’s Alex cuts a serious rather than a sad figure despite Georgie, and life, seeming to be something being done to her. She has an honourable and dignified strength.

The staging is never more than two chairs. Nothing to distract from the two humans, glancing off each other. Except for an expertly delivered soundscape by Hugh Sheehan that subtly creates atmosphere the most accomplished set designer would be jealous of. It’s a masterful use of the tiny Arcola space.

Heisenberg provokes initial confusion and potential rejection. A struggle for the audience to respond to Georgie, who is unbearable, but beguiling. Why would someone, particularly Alex, who is no fool, allow this mess to engulf their life? It’s confusing and counterintuitive. Yet curiosity compels both Alex and the audience onwards. It’s an intellectually baffling yet emotionally satisfying journey. Complex and surprising, highly demanding for the performers, and deeply rewarding for the audience.

 

Queerguru Contributing Editor ANDREW HEBDEN is a MEDIA and cultural STUDIES graduate spending his career between London, Beijing, and NYC as an expert in media and social trends. As part of the expanding minimalist FIRE movement, he recently returned to the UK and lives in Soho. He devotes as much time as possible to the movies, theatre, and the gym. His favorite thing is to try something (anything) new every day.