Heisenberg

It just goes to show you that not every work by great writers is a hit.  The writer of Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (Simon Stephens) wrote a shorter bit that deals with relationships and quirky people.  It belongs on an off-Broadway stage.  Unfortunately, the casting of a star has pushed the work, inappropriately, to Broadway.

Mary-Louise Parker's (Georgie Burns) star power is to blame. She and Denis Arndt (Alex Priest) do a fine job of acting for 80 minutes on a stage jammed with more stage seating to pump up the ticket revenues.  There really is no purpose to the on-stage seating.  But that is just the problem, once again.  Show me the star and I'll show you and over-priced, too short runtime show.

Now, the material - relationships, age, quirky people and lots of broken dreams, promises, and lives.  It's not a happy story for the most part.  However, in 80 minutes you barely get the chance to evaluate these characters, where they are going, and what their motivations are.  It's too brief and you're left guessing at the tidbits of facts they spill out in the dialogue.

Heisenberg (the one that I looked up) was some sort of physicist.  His uncertainty principle or maybe other aspects of his research are what the play is named after I believe.  He's never mentioned in the play - it's one of those "why did they name it this?" titles.  His principle is about not being able to tell where moving parts are going or how they are going to get there - - much like the 2 characters in this play.

Well in summary, I couldn't tell where the play was going or why it even started in the first place.