THE BUZZ ON B’WAY
Beekeeping lesson for Gyllenhaal
J ake Gyllenhaal studied how to beehave for “Constellations.”
In the compact two-character play by British writer Nick Payne, the “Brokeback Mountain” Oscar nominee plays Roland, a beekeeper.
Payne offers no explanation for the character’s profession, but acknowledges that it’s tactile and hands-on. It involves an up-close focus of what’s in front of you.
No one knows that better than Megan Paska, author of “The Rooftop Beekeeper: A Scrappy Guide to Keeping Urban Honeybees,” who was invited to share her insights and experiences with the cast.
She showed up at a rehearsal with an empty hive the size of a small filing cabinet, a smoker, homemade honey and some specimens that died of natural causes.
“As a beekeeper you observe this small world,” says the former Brooklynite, who now lives on a 4-acre farm in New Jersey. “You see it all in a glimpse and how it all works together. The tiniest variable can change the future of the colony.”
Paska adds that beekeeping “has a meditative effect” on her. Watching worker bees, drones and the queen in action eases her anxiety.
Gyllenhaal found that fascinating: “He got a little misty,” she says.
Such sensitivity may come in handy in this riff on a classic romance.
“It’s a boy-meets-girl scenario with a scientific twist,” director Michael Longhurst has said. “It’s boy meets girl, boy meets girl again, boy meets girl again.”
The girl is Marianne, who’s played by Ruth Wilson, a London stage veteran and star of Showtime’s “The Affair.” Marianne is a cosmologist. Unlike Roland, whose universe is fully contained in a hive, her universe is, well, the universe.
To understand what makes Wilson’s character tick, the actors and creative team met with Janna Levin, a cosmologist, and toured the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History.
From a beekeeper to a scientist — and both perspectives were fitting for a play about how we see the world.
The show marks Broadway debuts for Wilson and Gyllenhaal, who was directed by Longhurst in an Off-Broadway run of Payne’s play “If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet.”
Gyllenhaal has called “Constellations” “wholly original.” He added that “the structure of the play and the many universes that you experience with this couple separates it from any love story I’ve ever seen.”
THEATER CRITIC
“Constellations” runs Dec. 16-March 15, with its official opening on Jan. 13 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.