Some would call “Heisenberg” a love story, including Ensemble Theatre: it is referred to in their program by their executive director as “A truly beautiful and awkward love story that navigates the process of human connection…” It is certainly awkward, some moments are heartwarming while many more are heart-wrenching. Yet, for a show described as a beautiful and awkward love story, the feelings you will experience most are very un-love-story-like: uncertainty, discomfort and unease.
The two-actor show, written by Simon Stephens of award-winning “The Curious Incident of the Dog and The Night-Time,” premiered off-Broadway in 2015. It’s currently receiving its Cleveland premiere at Ensemble Theatre under the direction of Tom Fulton.
The show opens on Georgie apologizing to Alex, a stranger at a London train station whom she has just kissed on the back of the neck. Within moments, it’s obvious that Georgie and Alex are intrinsically different people with differing personalities, differing outlooks on life and differing intentions–with a 33-year age gap, to boot. For 80 uninterrupted minutes, “Heisenberg” follows the development of Georgie and Alex’s unique and troubling relationship.
Imagine you’re minding your own business on a bench when a stranger kisses you on the neck. It was a mistake–or so they claim–but they continue pushing a conversation onto you. They bear far too many intimate details about their life and force you into another physical interaction by insisting you shake their hand. You end the conversation, blatantly stating your displeasure and discomfort, and they try to pressure you into staying. After finally escaping this awkward interaction, the stranger shows up at your place of work after tracking you down, then tells you to take them on a date. When you decline, they insist.
Those are only brief summaries of the first two scenes of “Heisenberg.” I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t sound like a beautiful love story to me. It’s stalking. It’s ignoring and crossing boundaries. It’s uncomfortable and disturbing. But because the pursuer in this relationship is a 42-year-old, free-spirited woman and the one being pursued is a 75-year-old, aloof man, we’re supposed to ignore the giant, scarlet red flags that are practically whipping in our faces.
For those of us audience members not willing to ignore these red flags or refuse to be blinded by Georgie’s self-deprecating, “quirky” remarks (search “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” trope and Georgie is practically the definition), the love story feels wrong. “Heisenberg” feels similar to watching a thriller and waiting for the dramatic music to kick in and a sick twist to be revealed.
With all of that being said, the discomfort and wrongness of “Heisenberg” is still entertaining and intriguing to explore, despite it not being what the theater company and director Fulton sought to accomplish with their interpretation.
While I found it difficult to agree with Ensemble’s warmhearted description of their show, one element on which I wholeheartedly agree is the brilliance of their actors.
Lara Mielcarek is incredibly authentic in her portrayal of Georgie. She is chaos incarnate: fidgety, intrusive, hyper, loud, commanding, inappropriate, eccentric, whimsical and random. Mielcarek’s frantic, real portrayal makes Georgie’s overbearing personality entertaining, even humorous at times, so much so that you almost want to forgive the character’s very questionable actions–more evidence that there’s powerful manipulation at work here.
Jeffrey Grover skillfully portrays Alex. The character is stoic, formal and distant, but Grover ensures that he is likable and endearing in his quiet reservedness. Alex becomes steadily more likable as the show goes on and the walls he has erected around his emotions begin to crumble. Alex’s attitude at the end of the show is a refreshing bit of character development.
Together, Mielcarek and Grover make for an especially talented pairing. This strength is essential for “Heisenberg’s” success because the rest of the show’s production values lack impact.
Playwright Stephens instructs that “The stage should be as bare as possible. The walls of the theatre should be revealed. The lighting rig should be revealed. If any props are used at all they
should be revealed and remain on stage throughout.”
Ensemble’s set and lighting designer Ian Hinz and props and sound designer Rebecca Moseley deliver upon this request, using stacked black boxes as furniture and minimal sounds and moody lights to set an ambiance. Katie Simón Atkinson dresses the cast in wardrobes fitting each characters’ personality, but aside from one addition of a jacket per character, these outfits never change throughout the show. The result is an excessively simple production design that feels more suited for a workshop than a fully-fledged production (although this is due, of course, to Ensemble merely following orders).
German physicist Werner Heisenberg, from whom the show gleans its name, is most famous for his Uncertainty Principle, which claims that one cannot precisely know both the position and momentum of a particle at the same time. I won’t break this down too thoroughly, but am going to pull from it a focus for our intents and purposes: uncertainty.
Fittingly, “Heisenberg” at Ensemble Theatre is rife with uncertainty. You’re never quite certain where “Heisenberg” is going to take you, and that’s part of the fun. If you’re anything like me, it won’t give you the extraordinary love story that Ensemble promises, but the wonderful acting and flawed characters will intrigue you all the same.
“Heisenberg” runs through May 25 at Ensemble Theatre in Marinello Little Theater, 1 John Carroll Blvd., University Hts. 44118. Tickets can be purchased by calling (216) 321-2930 or by visiting ensembletheatrecle.org, Pay What You Can-$38.
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This article appears in Cleveland SCENE 05/08/25.