LOVE, LOSS AND REALMS OF POSSIBILITY
Clever and original, Nick Payne’s Constellations pingpongs between parallel universes without losing the plot
Constellations Gate Theatre
Until June 2 ★★★★★
Nick Payne’s twohander play, first produced in 2012, is a brilliant idea, an original thinkpiece, cleverly written, deadly serious, and very funny in places, although I admit I found myself wondering if it’s a piece that, by its nature, could stand up to repeated viewings.
It’s based on the theory of quantum physics that poses the prospect of an unimaginable number of parallel universes in which the lives we have, the decisions we have made, and actions we will take, can all be constantly lived at the same time, with different outcomes.
The complicated physics is suggested, but it doesn’t intrude: it’s expressed in simple language and great dexterity through the relationship between two people over a lifetime (or lifetimes).
The beauty of the concept and the structure of the production is
‘Early on the sudden switches between universes provide lots of belly laughs’
in the way the various worlds the two characters inhabit are suggested with the simplest changes of lighting, movement and sometimes barely noticeable alteration of dialogue.
Roland, a beekeeper, meets Marianne, a physicist, at a barbecue. We assume that they’re both young, and they indulge in playful flirting. In the early scenes the sudden switches between universes provide lots of belly laughs at the inconsistency in behaviour of the characters.
Their parallel lives jump backwards and forwards through different locations and circumstances.
That can sound very confusing, but the beauty of the play’s structure means you’re never left wondering what exactly is going on. And there’s a serious, more traditional aspect to the relationship that brings in profound ideas about love, loss, free will, faithfulness and suffering.
A possible flaw in the overall concept is that as the play develops, it’s forced to leave the parallel universe idea in order to concentrate in traditional mode on the developing emotions and activities of the two characters as we know them.
The beekeeper theme that supplies some of the laughs is used as a means of comparing the infinite human possibilities in time and space with the eternally rigid lifestyle of the beehive’s wonderful but rigid regime that allows no deviation.
Brian Gleeson as Roland and Sarah Morris as Marianne give remarkable performances considering the difficulties involved in the unusual nature of the script that skewers normal character development, which must have presented serious difficulties for remembering the sequencing of the dialogues. Director Marc Atkinson Borrull guides the onstage movement unobtrusively and imaginatively in a play that has little in the way of normal activity.
The elaborate lighting design by Paul Keogan, with its array of chandeliers reflected behind, below and above, seems possibly to suggest the endless expanse of the stellar universe.
But of course, in my current universe, I could be wrong.
‘The performances are remarkable given the unusual nature of the script’