Heisenberg NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (375)
See it if you want a master class in storytelling.
Don't see it if you dislike modern plays with minimal sets.
See it if you like in fast paced drama, if you want to see great acting or if you want to see a developing relationship between unlikely people
Don't see it if you want a spectacle or if you hate shows that are mostly about character development
See it if You are interested in exploring love relationships and moral dilemmas.
Don't see it if you would rather not analyze why we fall in love and whether or not manipulation is sometimes okay!
See it if You love Mary Louise Parker of course! She is truly a remarkable actress and completely transforms in this play about two lonely people!
Don't see it if You want a play with big sets and costumes. Simple two person play that seems banal but packs a nice punch. On stage seating faces audience.
See it if You like a dramatic play with good acting.
Don't see it if You like musicals, and lighter plays.
See it if you want a uniquely intimate, creatively simple experience in a Broadway theatre with two top-notch performers.
Don't see it if you'll be frustrated by the fact that the play itself doesn't quite live up to the special production it's in.
See it if you want to see two actors at the top of their game telling an intriguing tale. Parker is a perpetual motion machine on stage. Wow!
Don't see it if You want sets, costumes, or a "typical" comedy or drama. This pieces is alive!
See it if you appreciate a solid two-hander featuring a couple of great actors at the top of their game.
Don't see it if you're looking for a flashy, effects-heavy production. This show is simple and stripped down.
Critic Reviews (79)
“The Manhattan Theatre Club’s season opener...offers rich, intelligent dialogue, crisply efficient staging, two strong actors, and a situation and characters that require swallowing with more than a single grain of salt...Most audiences will appreciate the play as an amiable, straightforward romantic dramedy between an elderly man and a younger woman, each in need of filling a well of loneliness. You do, of course, have to make allowances for dramatic license.”
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"'Heisenberg' is only 80 minutes long and even that is too long with Mary-Louise Parker's horrible grating, whiny vocal tones and staging that is obstructed, no matter where you sit...This play puts the audience to sleep. The problem is I just did not believe this romance for a single second...Why this play is called 'Heisenberg' is beyond me, as there was nothing explosive or chemistry that was exciting to watch...How this play made it to Broadway is a mystery."
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"How much punier can plays get on Broadway? The director Mark Brokaw has found a way. It’s no longer enough that audiences are asked to sit through an evening that’s only 80 minutes sans intermission...Brokaw has reduced the performing space at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre to a narrow catwalk...Arndt is amiable and dull while Parker is hyper and unhinged...Georgie and Alex are wrong for each other, and so their happy ending emerges as false and forced."
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"They are a mismatch made in dramatic heaven. Combine Parker and Arndt with the intriguingly enigmatic script and the canny direction by Mark Brokaw, and you have another winning new play...The play loses none of the dynamic impact it had on 55th Street. In fact, the spare staging actually enhances the fragmentary nature of the play, with the pair striving to maintain balance as if on a metaphysical seesaw...What joy there is in watching actors like this, in a new play like this."
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"The working out of the playwright’s musings, under the snappy direction of Mark Brokaw...is in the hands of two terrific actors, Arndt and Parker...All lies in the writing and acting, and the stars are commanding. Parker, in a role very different than some of the parts she has played, is amusingly flamboyant and a dynamic force that little by little brings Alex out of his shell...There is no uncertainty that this is a captivating play offering two highly appealing performances."
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"If Georgie just seems like a crazy, lonely soul at first, as her motives surface and the character clicks into place, the power of Parker’s performance becomes clearer as well...Arndt is quietly brilliant, as Alex likewise shifts away from expectations to become something more surprising...If the play’s first half feels less engaging because of how much remains unknown, by the end it subtly poses much larger questions you’re likely to think about for some time afterward."
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"This has to be one of the most unlikely, yet deeply convincing couples you’ll ever see on stage; a romantic, highly sexual relationship that slowly evolves despite reticence, red flags and trap doors at every turn. Playwright Simon Stephens has created two marvelous characters who make what could have been yet another quirky-girl-gets-repressed-man-to-open-up scenario into something eminently richer and more satisfying...Timing is impeccable, physical acting perfection."
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"The actors are back, even more nuanced and riveting...Director Mark Brokaw’s simple, impeccably observed production has little more than a couple of metal tables and chairs with which to burrow into fine-tuned character studies...In just a few ingratiating, ultimately devastating scenes, Stephens and his actors carve out mismatched, lonely grown-ups who are as confused and fascinated by their history and future as we are."
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