Constellations is a love story across parallel worlds and times. The different permutations rely on the brilliance of the actors to pull it off. This they do, turning a charming everyday story of encounters at barbeques and small infidelities into an interesting 'what if'. What if, in parallel worlds, we are responding differently to the same scenario? How do the small tweaks change the big picture?
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| Star pucker |
As beekeeper Roland, Rafe Spall is charming, and Sally Hawkins' anorexic vulnerability painfully conveys the catastrophe that threatens physicist, Marianne's world. No doubt the lovers in the audience, and those of a sentimental bent, shuffled out wondering what turns their own lives might have taken - or, indeed, may
be taking in parallel time zones - if they had responded differently to past opportunities. Others were probably thankful they will never know.
The physics of the piece - the atoms, the strings, the sense of time and space and nothingness are underscored by Tom Scutt's central set, which sits under a sky of differently sized, beribboned white balloons. Nick Payne's script, however, while clever and challenging, doesn't take the 'what if' far enough: we are no further on than Billie Piper bidding David Tennant farewell across space in Dr Who.
In conclusion: Michael Longhurst's direction ensures that we are fully engaged for the entire seventy minutes, but it is the performances and the staging that pack a punch, more than the content.
References
Royal Court Theatre
Paul Taylor review in The Independent
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