Constellations
Loft Theatre
SO MUCH of what happens in our lives depends on the tiniest of choices and our inability to just hit a celestial Undo button results in outcomes we often wish were otherwise.
A chance to load up the ‘what ifs’ and take a look at how, on any other day, things might have turned out diiferently arrives at the Loft in Nick Payne’s Constellations.
The most basic tenet of quantum mechanics, that things can be in many places at once with all outcomes existing simultaneously, has given writers a quite literally limitless canvas on which to develop metaphors for life’s bewildering randomness.
It’s all been done before in books and on film (that’s rather the point of the theory) but what makes this bright and brief offering intriguing is its exploration of the way in which we approach such a baffling idea and what conciliation it may have for our fractured lives.
A young couple, physicist Marianne and beekeeper Roland, meet and stumble their way through a relationship littered with pitfalls suffered and then, in a different universe, somehow overcome.
In a relentless progression of short scenes between reset blackouts we see alternative versions of the couple’s putative reality. It makes for dizzying viewing but, under Sue Moore’s direction, everything emerges reassuringly clear.
Leonie Slater and Ted McGowan keep that clarity going. These are two excellent performances of a script that, thanks to its constant recap and repetition, could become complicated and confused. Moving from love to anger, strength to vulnerability at a second’s switching is handled with real aplomb. There’s comedy and sadness in abundance along the way and, while the Loft’s sizeable stage eats up a bit of the intimacy, it’s a terrific effort all round.
Terminal illness, hinted at throughout, strikes and though all seems irretrievably black the multiverse offers the theoretical salve that somewhere else this doesn’t happen and endless joy replaces the seemingly inevitable grief.
As far as stories to comfort us in the face of horrible loss, this element of quantum theory is no better or worse than anything myth or religion has served up. It’s all really a question of what you believe or, as Marianne tellingly struggles to say, where you put your faith.
Cleanly staged and with two utterly winning performances this is a very entertaining production which outlines a few tricky questions without ever suggesting it can provide solid, scientific answers.
Visit lofttheatrecompany for details of performances and tickets.
Matthew Salisbury
