In Search of Alex and Georgie: A Psychologist Explores Heisenberg’s Two Characters

-
By Taylor Steinbeck

“The meeting of two personalities,” wrote Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in Modern Man in Search of a Soul, “is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” This is what happens when the seemingly incompatible characters of Georgie Burns and Alex Priest collide in Simon Stephens’s Heisenberg. To find out what makes these characters tick, we reached out to Dr. Mason Turner, the director of outpatient mental health and addiction medicine at The Permanente Medical Group in Oakland, and the host of A.C.T.’s Theater on the Couch—an interactive discussion that follows one Friday-night performance of each mainstage production. After reading the play, Dr. Turner offered some psychological insights into the behaviors of Georgie, Alex, and human beings in general.

James Carpenter as Alex Priest and Sarah Grace Wilson as Georgie Burns in A.C.T.'s 2018 production of Heisenberg. Photo by Kevin Berne.
Simon Stephens explores how people can surprise us, no matter how well we think we know them. To what extent is human behavior predictable?

MT: Human beings continue to surprise me each and every day, including people that I have known for 30 or 40 years. This is because, as individuals, we can learn from our mistakes, and effectively modify things that we don’t like about ourselves. That’s partly what I do every day with patients: I help them figure out what they need and want to change. To say that human beings are predictable is a real fallacy in some ways. We are often predictable, but we always need to be open to the possibility that people can and do surprise us.

What motivates Georgie's habit of lying?

MT: She could be lying because she wants to remove herself from her own reality. After all, in the first scene she lies about not having children, and then we later learn that she’s estranged from her son. A lot of questions go through my mind about her behaviors: Does she lie because she’s trying to hide from the fact that she wasn’t the mother that she hoped to be? Is she not willing to talk about it because she doesn’t hold up to society’s standards of motherhood? To what degree is this just pure manipulation?

James Carpenter as Alex Priest and Sarah Grace Wilson
as Georgie Burns in A.C.T.'s 2018 production of Heisenberg.
Photo by Kevin Berne.
For most of Alex’s life, he’s been doing the same thing every day. What makes people cling to routine?

MT: For most of us, routine will bring a sense of safety and security because it’s predictable. On the other hand, most people recognize that living a life of order and routine can be somewhat unfulfilling because there’s no spontaneity. Alex’s case is special since he experienced a lot of emotional trauma in his early childhood and adolescence. For children who grow up in unpredictable, chaotic environments, it can be very challenging for them to make sense of their world and figure out how to be safe in it. So, the reason that Alex might gravitate toward routine is because it gives him the opportunity to take control of his life.

As the host of A.C.T.’s Theater on the Couch, what do you think audiences will take from the Heisenberg conversation?

MT: It’s always an interesting discussion for me to have. There will oftentimes be big disagreements between audience members about the characters’ motivations and things of that nature because we project ourselves onto those characters. The real benefit of watching an introspective play like Heisenberg is that we get to know ourselves better and understand a little bit more about our own motivations and our own personalities.

Heisenberg runs through April 8 at A.C.T.’s Geary Theater. Click here to purchase tickets. Join us at The Geary tonight for Theater on the Couch! This discussion of Heisenberg will be the final Theater on the Couch hosted by Dr. Mason Turner before he relocates. Want to learn more about the motives  behind the characters in Heisenberg? Order a copy of Words on Plays, A.C.T.’s in-depth performance guide series.

Popular posts from this blog

“To Be or Not to Be”: The Iconic Speech’s Origins, Interpretations, and Impact

-
Image
By A.C.T. Publications Staff The opening line of Hamlet ’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy is theater’s most iconic, most referenced quote. What’s less known is the famous speech’s history, with Hamlet ’s earliest publications offering varying versions of its language. Also questioned is its meaning—is Hamlet contemplating suicide or is he weighing the consequences of murder? Though definitive answers are unlikely to arise, the questions “To be or not to be” asks have kept audiences, scholars, and actors engaged for centuries. Hamlet ’ s "To be or not to be" speech as it appears in the three original editions of the play. Photo by Georgelazenby. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. The first edition, or First Quarto (Q1), of Hamlet was published in 1603. Because the text is much shorter than later editions and its language is less poetic, it is nicknamed the “Bad Quarto” by scholars. “To be or not to be” in Q1 reads as: To be, or not to be—ay, there’s the point. To die,
Read more

The American Sound: The Evolution of Jazz

-
Image
By Cecilia Padilla There is nothing so uniquely American as jazz music. In its simplest form, jazz embodies the essence of the American people: bold and inventive. The improvisation of the jazz ensemble can even be seen as a metaphor for the American democratic ideal: musicians playing solos have the liberty to express themselves as long as they adhere to the overall structure of the tune—individual freedom but with responsibility to the group. The evolution of jazz music also carries with it the social development of our nation from slavery to the swinging songs of World War II. Musically, jazz contributed immensely to the way contemporary musicians approach instrumentation, composition, and vocal arrangements. It is difficult to find a popular tune today that does not derive from such jazz icons as Joe Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Thelonious Monk. Jazz is the great equalizer; for more than a hundred years, it has been the common ground between blacks and whites, me
Read more

Purely Pinteresque: The Elements of Pinter's Language

-
Image
By Taylor Steinbeck Most artists take years to establish their voice and style. This wasn’t the case for playwright Harold Pinter. His first West End play, The Birthday Party, showcases the elements of Pinter’s aesthetic that would later be evident throughout his 29 plays and 23 screenplays: the rhythm of colloquial language punctuated by pauses and silences, mysterious characters who rarely say what they mean, and the unsettling, yet witty juxtaposition of comedy and terror. Suspenseful and comical, familiar and foreign, disturbing and alluring, The Birthday Party is quintessential Pinter. Graphite drawing of Harold Pinter. By A.C.T. Senior Graphic Designer Brad Amorosino. Pinter is a playwright who uses the back-and-forth of everyday conversation to create conflict and shape power dynamics between characters. “My characters tend to use words not to express what they think or feel,” said Pinter in a 1995 speech, “but to disguise what they think or feel, to mask their actual
Read more