Written by Nick Payne. Sydney Theatre Company. 28 Jul – 2 Sep, 2023.
A beekeeper and an astrophysicist meet and fall in love.
A beekeeper and an astrophysicist meet and don’t fall in love.
A beekeeper and an astrophysicist meet and fall in love but it’s complicated.
Don’t worry, if you search through the multiverse of possibilities you’ll find a happy ending to Nick Payne’s beautiful and funny Constellations.
You can’t point a stick without hitting the concept of the multiverse these days. It’s all over blockbuster movies, art-house cinema and TV. The concept arguably peaked with the Oscar winning Everything, Everywhere, All at Once in 2022, but this small two-hander became a smash hit by tugging heart-strings and jumping universes ten years earlier in 2012. Welcome to theatre’s original Multiverse of Sadness.
We follow a single couple, Roland (Johnny Carr) and Marianne (Catherine Văn-Davies), down a variety of forks in the road. Do they hit it off or not? If so, do they get past the first date? If so, what happens when more serious hurdles come their way? If they break up, could they get back together? It’s a play about romantic and quantum entanglements, a series of “what ifs”, in which small changes have large ramifications.
It takes strong acting chops and oodles of charm to keep the audience engaged through scenes that repeat with only minor alterations. Thankfully Carr’s gentle warmth and Văn-Davies’ wide-eyed quirkiness keep things fresh each time, mining each moment for new shades of humour and heart-break. Constellations has been a star-vehicle since it debuted (I was lucky enough to catch the 2021 West End revival with Russell Tovey & Omari Douglas playing it as a same-sex couple) and Carr & Văn-Davies are up there with the best. Director Ian Michael has taken this potentially static and confusing play and made it dance.
If I were to sum up this production of Constellations, I would call it “elegant”. There is an elegance to Payne’s writing, that easily establishes the high concept without forcing jargon down your throat, and an equal elegance to Isabel Hudson’s design work (with Benjamin Brockman’s gorgeous lighting design and James Brown’s sound and music). This play is breathtaking to look at. An ‘eye’ made of baby’s-breath and light hovers over the actors, changing hue and marking the change in time and universe with simple cues. There are moments in the third act when the repeating of scenes starts to lose its vigour but another piece of smart design work saves the day, transforming the space into an epic shower of gold – infusing the relatively bare stage with sparkling motion and an almost glamorous mystique. In a year when STC has hit design highs (On The Beach, Julia, Do Not Go Gentle, Fences – all handsomely presented) this may be the best yet.
I was slightly surprised the script hadn’t been localised to Australia (mentions of UK supermarket Tesco, and jokes about Tower Hamlets still work but have less impact), and as I mentioned, I felt like I was ahead of the action toward the end which made the drama feel like it lagged slightly. But these are minor quibbles.
There’s been a strong thread of melancholy running through STC’s 2023 season which has me wondering if Artistic Director Kip Williams needs a big hug, but when they have all been this beautiful watch I’m happy to throw on a comfy cashmere sweater, grab a glass of wine and stare into the abyss with him.
Cultural Binge 
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