Studio 16 to February 25, 2024
Tickets from $24.76 at www.exactresemblance.com
Posted February 20, 2024
I know nothing about string theory. I am Penny to Sheldon Cooper in tv’s The Big Bang – that is to say, completely in the dark. But while the Constellations press release includes string theory and quantum physics in the description, you don’t need to know anything other than to consider the notion of parallel universes. Or be willing to consider the possibility of endless possibilities. “Every choice, every decision you’ve ever and never made exists in an unimaginably vast ensemble of parallel universes,” Marianne tells Roland.
In the play, playwright Nick Payne gives us Roland, a beekeeper, and Marianne, a cosmologist working at Cambridge University. Strangers, they bump into each other; she gives him an interested backward glance. Fade to black. They bump into each other again; she gives him a flirty look. Fade to black. They meet yet again and this time she challenges him to lick his elbow; “Your elbows hold the secret to immortality.” Of course he can’t lick his elbows and he knows immortality isn’t real. It certainly isn’t in the bee world where drones live for about fifty-five days. “You can’t go on living and living and living”, she tells him. That’s the first clue that Roland and Marianne will have to address mortality.
Constellations goes on from there: scenes repeat with almost identical dialogue but with distinct differences in tone. Roland is, generally, sweet, caring and a little insecure but, given the same dialogue, he can also be aggressive; “I texted you. Why didn’t you answer?” can go both ways – anxious or accusatory. And the dialogue alternates between speakers. When Marianne makes the same demand of Roland, it can also go both ways. Similarly, “Where have you been?” can signal worry or fury. Scenes are repeated, dialogue is repeated and it switches between them.
The trajectory of Marianne and Roland’s relationship proceeds from handholding to sharing an apartment, admissions of infidelity and eventually to illness. What if he had said this? What if she had done that? Would the outcome have been different?
And so, Constellations is a puzzle and not always comfortable viewing. But under the direction of Cristiana Ripeanu for Exact Resemblance Theatre Company, these are two terrific performances. As Roland, Jacob Machin will either break your heart or make you laugh at his character’s awkward marriage proposal. Perhaps the bee keeper in Roland makes the character more supportive, more nurturing than Marianne’s. Gillian Clare’s Marianne is flirtatious, playful, taunting and much more enigmatic. “I haven’t really decided whether I want you to stay…I’m not really interested in sleeping with you.” And yet she has clearly been seducing him. The energy between Machin and Clare is palpable, delectable and in spite of not knowing exactly who they are or who said what, we want their relationship to work out. We want them to be happy. The ballroom dance scene(s) are great – her, gorgeous, balletic and poised; him, alternately a little nerdy or busting some good moves.
Set and lighting design by Victoria Bell cleverly match the material: eight, glow-in-the-dark neon bars suspended in a semi-circle and a cat’s cradle of string strung randomly throughout the theatre; think spider web. The bars glow, alternating in intensity and colour. Very cool, very cosmic.
Constellations eventually evokes all the ‘what ifs’ in our lives. The roads not taken. The relationships not pursued. In real life there is no rewind. No playback. But what if there were an infinite number of chances? And, in the end, on a cosmic level, would it matter?
In the spirit of parallel universes and because I simply can’t resist it, I offer two reviews: one from the 2012 London production reviewed by Arifa Akbar for The Guardian and the other by Rex Reed for The Observer following the 2015 Broadway production.
Arifa Akbar: “Plays containing complex science have sometimes succumbed to the pitfall of too much cerebral theorising …But this play manifests its science organically in both form and content, applying its quantum physics to the human drama with fantastic imagination, and playing with formal non-linearity with no sense of shallowness or gimmickry.” https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/jul/02/constellations-review-a-stellar-revival-for-nick-paynes-high-concept-romance
And Rex Reed: “At a time with whole websites dedicated to what plants think and how pets speak, when freaks wear meat dresses and lunatic interior designers decorate apartments in slide rules and cheese graters, nothing makes much sense in a real world that is no longer real. So I guess it’s not surprising that Broadway no longer makes sense, either. If it wasn’t so brain-numbingly goring [sic] you might call it [Constellations] a mindfuck.” https://observer.com/2015/01/nick-paynes-constellations-is-a-load-of-arcane-rubbish-disguised-as-a-play/
Parallel universes, parallel reviews.