On & Off Broadway

‘Heisenberg’ and ‘Oh, Hello’

Reviews by Elyse Trevers

Posted

Sometimes it takes only two to make a great show.

‘Heisenberg’

Heisenberg, at the MTC, stars the marvelous Mary-Louise Parker as quirky 40-something Georgie Burns and Denis Arndt as 75-year-old Alex Priest. They are an unlikely pair. She is unpredictable, outgoing and garrulous; he is taciturn, having built a solitary world for himself. He even has “conversations” with his dead sister. Yet somehow, after a halting start, their chemistry works and they become a touching couple.

Georgie, an inveterate liar, hits on Alex at a train station, kissing him on the neck, claiming that he resembles her dead husband. Later she confesses that she had no husband. She tracks him down to the butcher shop where he works. He backs away, almost frightened by this impetuous woman who curses and has no filter. Ultimately, like the audience, he is intrigued and entranced by her. Parker is a wonderful combination of brashness, edginess and sexiness. Arndt is perfectly staid and “straight.” With little in common and years apart, they shouldn’t be ideal together, yet by the end, the audience is rooting for them.

Although it doesn’t sound funny, Heisenberg is warm, funny and touching. Simon Stephens’ play is filled with twists and turns. Heisenberg postulated a principle of unpredictability and Georgie and Alex are an unpredictable couple. Maybe that’s why the play works so well.

‘Oh, Hello’

In contrast, actor Gil Faizon (Nick Kroll) and writer George St. Geegland (John Mulaney) are well suited for one another, having been together for more than 40 years on the Upper West Side. They are 70-something-year-olds who are now in jeopardy of losing their rent-controlled apartment.

Actors/ comedians Kroll and Mulaney recreate their familiar characters from Comedy Central’s Kroll Show in Oh, Hello at the Lyceum Theatre. With a running joke about “Too Much Tuna” based upon their public access prank show, they manage to be extremely entertaining, though often offensive with jokes about the Orthodox, the Indian student running their lights and NYC in general.

They recount their autobiographies and ‘perform’ a play. Even the set is funny, having been cobbled together from old shows formerly presented at the theater, including the dryers from Steel Magnolias, steps and pictures from an August Wilson play and the front door from the Cosby show (“They begged us to take it.”)

A feature of the show has been the appearance of a celebrity from the audience. On my visit, it was John Oliver who came onstage only to be lambasted about being British, etc. Oliver laughed so hard that he could hardly speak. (The audience shared the laughter!)

Some of the humor is juvenile while some quite clever. Much of it is delivered rapid-fire so you have to pay attention. The comics joke about theater and even describe the setting for those sitting in seats with obscured views.

This is a show that will appeal mostly to younger New Yorkers. The audience was hysterical through the course of the evening and some of them hadn’t even been drinking.