Review: ’Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle’ by Griffin Theatre asks, how do relationships happen?
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Devised by the German physicist Werner Heisenberg in 1927, the so-called uncertainty principle states that we cannot accurately know both the position and speed of a particle, such as a photon or electron or anything with wave-like properties. The better we know, say, its location, the less we know about its speed.
You could be forgiven for watching Simon Stephens’ play by Griffin Theatre and not understanding what appears to be a story of late-in-life love between a highly energetic 42-year-old woman (Laura Coover) and a taciturn, 75-year-old butcher (Scott Anderson), has to do with quantum physics. But Stephens, a fine playwright whose works are justifiably popular in Chicago storefronts, is exploring the randomness of relationships. People often end up marrying somebody they meet by chance, say on a train or a park bench, and they then spend years wondering whether the encounter was really random at all. It all depends, I suppose, on how you define the word.
Stephens’ play, a two-hander, was produced at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2016 with Mary-Louise Parker and Denis Arndt in a production widely admired for the sexual chemistry of the two actors. Alas, I wouldn’t say the pair on the stage of the Raven Theatre manifest a similar energy, even though they’re both fine, sexy actors. They just don’t ever really feel connected.
Granted, it’s a complex matrix of a relationship. Whether or not they have met randomly is open to question throughout the 90 minutes running time as Stephens probes the role of self-interest and even exploitation in love affairs.
I think part of the issue in director Nate Cohen’s production is that Coover reads a tad too young role for this role and, although Anderson leans beautifully into his character’s suspicions and uncertainties, he is more uneasy when it comes to approaching his regeneration. The show has a jumpy kind of rhythm, especially in its sensual scenes, manifest in lots of moving around of inconsequential pieces of furniture when it needs more of a more humanistic build, allowing us to believe in this couple while worrying at every moment that the rug under them, and under all of us, will be pulled away.
If you plan to go, I’d give it another week or so, allowing the show to settle and become more sure of its own uncertainty and determination.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle” (2.5 stars)
When: Through March 26
Where: Griffin Theatre at Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark St.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Tickets: $40 at 773-338-2177 and www.griffintheatre.com
