Heisenberg
Closed 1h 25m
Heisenberg
78

Heisenberg NYC Reviews and Tickets

78%
(375 Ratings)
Positive
84%
Mixed
12%
Negative
4%
Members say
Great acting, Absorbing, Quirky, Intelligent, Clever

About the Show

After a hit Off-Broadway run at Manhattan Theatre Club last season, Simon Stephens' play transfers to Broadway with original stars Mary-Louise Parker and Denis Arndt.

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Show-Score Member Reviews (375)

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77 Reviews | 45 Followers
100
Thought-provoking, Intense, Edgy, Entertaining, Absorbing

See it if You are a single woman who has fallen for an older man at some point in your life

Don't see it if You need more than two actors on the stage

77 Reviews | 18 Followers
100
Absorbing, Great acting, Masterful, Profound

See it if you have an open mind to the power of acting. The two actors left alone on the stage are enough to captive for the full 90 minutes.

Don't see it if you enjoy traditional plays and can't lose yourself in the actors and their story. Read more

165 Reviews | 34 Followers
100
Absorbing, Clever, Great acting, Masterful

See it if You can appreciate a play that relies on its text and the skill of its actors to inform and entertain.

Don't see it if You require excessive visual stimuli for a satisfying theatrical experience. This play? It's all in the words.

69 Reviews | 11 Followers
100
Absorbing, Clever, Great acting, Entertaining, Hilarious

See it if You are a fan of Mary-Louise Parker.

Don't see it if You don't enjoy plot twists.

127 Reviews | 24 Followers
100
Absorbing, Entertaining, Great acting, Great writing, Masterful

See it if You want a engaging two person play about uncertainty.

Don't see it if Are bored easy and need flashy things.

97 Reviews | 16 Followers
98
Brilliant, Clever, Great acting, Intelligent

See it if you like intelligent plays, non-predictable dialogue, and the sparring of two truly talented actors who constantly react to each other

Don't see it if you can't follow dialogue or hate two-actor plays

166 Reviews | 39 Followers
98
Absorbing, Great acting, Masterful, Thought-provoking

See it if Both actors, Ms. Parker and Mr. Arndt were exceptional. Their performances are Tony worthy. Meaningful and tender love story..

Don't see it if you can't handle a two actor play with no sets or scenery or if you are looking for a huge Broadway production.

257 Reviews | 26 Followers
96
Absorbing, Clever, Great acting, Great staging, Quirky

See it if You love Mary Louise Parker. You enjoy 2-character plays where relationships develop. You like to discuss the play after you've seen it.

Don't see it if You need to understand the characters. You don't enjoy wordy plays.

Critic Reviews (79)

The New York Times
October 13th, 2016

"The sexiest couple on a New York stage just now...I groaned when I heard 'Heisenberg' was traveling to Broadway. I would never have predicted that it would seem even more vibrant and emotionally charged...The production’s creative team thwarts expectations at every turn...Mr. Stephens is an uncannily subtle dramatist who never wears his depths on the surface...He makes us see how conventional story lines fail to hold their shape when unspooled within the mess of human reality."
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Time Out New York
October 13th, 2016

"If I understand the oblique title correctly, 'Heisenberg' is about how being with another person—being observed, at close range—can affect your direction...Mark Brokaw’s spare production seems even less imposing in the company's Broadway house, but that works to its advantage. Stephens’s carefully crafted 75-minute play has a sense of how little its characters matter to the universe. It makes that smallness feel liberating."
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New York Magazine / Vulture
October 13th, 2016

"One of last year’s best dramas has somehow become one of this year’s best comedies...The two-person cast is still terrific, with Parker doing her best stage work in years, and Arndt again a wonderful surprise to New York audiences. The script, too, is all but unaltered...Yet somehow the spin seems to have reversed direction; it’s now less like a whirlpool pulling you under than a tornado flinging you up...But with the story’s increased size come the social pleasures of large-scale theater."
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The Wall Street Journal
October 13th, 2016

"It is blush-makingly trite...The result is, not to put too fine a point on it, a blatant exercise in masculine wish fulfillment, and it doesn’t help that Ms. Parker seems to think that Georgie is an inexplicably youthful Manic Pixie Dream Girl..Mr. Stephens has aided and abetted Ms. Parker by putting eye-rollingly twee sentences in Georgie’s mouth that no actor, however talented, should be expected to utter with a straight face. He’s the culprit-in-chief—she’s merely a co-conspirator."
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Deadline
October 16th, 2016

“Mary-Louise Parker and Denis Arndt and this wonderful play have made the transition with deeper performances, even with the volume turned up a notch to accommodate the bigger space. It is, hands down, the most romantic, not to mention sexiest, show in town…The acting is stripped bare as, in the beautifully calibrated performances, Alex’s initial imperturbability yields to Georgie’s ever-more poignant persistence.”
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New York Daily News
October 13th, 2016

"For Mary-Louise Parker die-hards, 'Heisenberg' won’t disappoint...There’s fertile material there, along with moments that are lovely and contrived in director Mark Brokaw’s spare staging. But the issue with the play remains unchanged from last year’s Off-Broadway run. Arndt lives his role. Parker plays hers. There’s a nagging difference, that’s for certain."
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Entertainment Weekly
October 13th, 2016

"Despite moving to a larger venue, the play is nothing if not intimate...Brokaw’s production itself is wisely bare-bones...The emphasis should be on these two opposites finding something intangible that they’re each missing, and any further frills might distract from that. Stephens’ script is jammed with insightful, unforgettable lines...The show has just enough comedy sprinkled throughout to keep the audience laughing and leave them with plenty to ponder."
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AM New York
October 13th, 2016

"In all its nakedness, Brokaw’s production resembles an acting class, where only a table and chairs would be available to suggest a setting. As it happens, the play itself is just as thin as the production values...Despite its initial promise, this static two-hander quickly goes flat. Nevertheless, Parker and Arndt play off each other wonderfully. Parker is a wild bundle of energy and whimsy, while Arndt, initially the straight man to Parker’s theatrics, eventually opens up and comes to life."
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