The play, written by young English star Nick Payne, begins with the flippant notion of parallel worlds, where every decision you have ever and never made has all been played out down to the finest detail. It is not a science fiction alternative history story though, Constellations examines the minutiae of love and relationships. Variations as simple as intonation or body language send the couple’s interactions toppling into different moods and repercussions, as they speak the same words or near enough to each other. It speaks to the power of language as much as the unspoken moments that pass between us all each day unnoticed. But in Constellations they take centre stage, the difference between a nervous or flirty laugh becomes as clear as day, signalling to the audience that they are witnessing yet another alternate interaction.
Alison Bell is a joy as Marianne, she is both hilarious and moving, a gifted comic actress with reserve she makes dance with life. Leon Ford lives in Roland, making the couple seem real and in love. I was grateful for the choice to not force either actor into English accents despite the London setting, the play is natural and it’s all the better for it.
The story itself becomes a battle between “what if” and “what next.’ Early on it promises endless possible variants and chances – the differences between time and choice – promising us all we have not set fate and free will rules over destiny. Disappointingly, throughout the course of the piece, I felt the focus narrowed progressively, as if all the options were still only leading to one destination and we have not been watching choice at all but romantic fatalism. We have seen a portrait of a couple as reflected in a shattered mirror, each glimpse and angle slightly different from the last, small and jagged, too hard to understand on its own, but when reconstructed it’s still just the same reflection as it ever was. Maybe our choices live between the crack or maybe our choices don’t matter at all.
Constellations may not have delivered all I had hoped it could but it is a first class piece of theatre all the same, performed by a faultless cast.
