One evening, Roland and Marianne attend a barbeque. He's a beekeeper, while she's a cosmologist, gazing at the stars in the hopes of planning her future through multiple universes. Together, Roland and Marianne hit it off, but as the topic of infidelity bubbles to the surface, the pair break up. They've got every possible future stretching out in front of them, with each possibility changing up their relationship. Throughout the play, they meet each other in unexpected situations, with Roland at Marianne's side in her final days. The play premiered on Broadway in a Manhattan Theatre Club production at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on January 13, 2015 and closed on 15 March 2015. The cast starred Jake Gyllenhaal (in his Broadway debut) and Ruth Wilson. [6] Ruth Wilson received a nomination for the 2015 Tony Award, Best Performance By a Leading Actress in a Play. [7] The play received three Drama League Award nominations: Best Play, Best Actor, Gyllenhaal, and Best Actress, Wilson. [8] 2021 West End revival [ edit ]

By contrast, Capaldi and Wanamaker start from the position of ringing a bit false. They’re far older than the characters, which isn’t a big deal, but it’s a dissonance amped up by Capaldi playing Roland as a sort of twitchy, gurning, eccentric uncle type. I can absolutely understand why he didn’t just go with the flow on Roland, but while often highly amusing, he just comes across as too weird for the eventually tragic relationship to be truly touching, especially because he somewhat drowns out Wanamaker’s more straitlaced Marianne. In Marvel’s multiversal TV show ‘Loki’, there’s a version of the eponymous hero who is a crocodile – great fun, but too bizarre to actually be the ‘proper’ version of Loki. Capaldi isn’t quite that out there. But he explicitly feels like a Roland Variant, not the real deal. A fascinating experiment, though, and his ‘Doctor Who’-begat fans will doubtless lap up the goofing. Listen to me, listen to me. The basic laws of physics—the b-basic laws of physics don’t have a past and a present. Time is irrelevant at the level of a-atoms and molecules. It’s symmetrical A major part of the pull of seeing two stagings of Constellations on the same day is the difference between each cast - in that respect, the play also subtextually dramatises the infinity of choices that govern how a play is realised on stage. Douglas and Tovey’s kinetic performances have the edge here. They share a naturally playful, even-handed chemistry that breezes adroitly through razor-sharp comic timing and the abrupt changes of scene that dramatise Payne’s stage direction in the script “an indented rule indicates a change in universe”. Tovey’s rap-inflected romantic monologue about the sex life of bees is truly something special to experience. And what about Tovey? Is he happy with how things are? He’s spoken in the past about frequently feeling too young for the task at hand. As 40 approaches, can he shake off a bit of the boy in him? “I’m always someone that, if something makes me feel uncomfortable, I push through it and then I sort of catch up … But when it comes to me now, I feel the most settled and the most calm I’ve been for a long, long time. Definitely.” In November 2015, the Chinese-language premiere was directed and translated by Wang Chong in Beijing. He used 13 on stage cameras to conceptualize the play into a "stage movie" with the 50 scenes presented in 50 takes creating a very intimate cinematic experience. A real hamster was also on the stage representing the god of time and universe dictating the cuts of the "movie" and the possibilities of life. Because of the show's success, the actress Wang Xiaohuan was recognised by The Beijing News as The Young Theater Artist of the Year. [20]Short and sweet and strangely haunting…The devilishly clever scribe is not playing games with either his characters or his audience, because with each iteration Roland and Marianne grow closer to one another—and become more important to us. And by the end of the play (has it really been only an hour?), we’re fully invested in their lives. All of them.” —Variety. Dependence on the sky became an essential part of many early cultures (and to agricultural cultures today).

This astonishing creation has burst from the imaginations of designer Isabel Hudson and director Ian Michael. It sets us up for a mind-expanding night in the theatre...The characters are engaging, funny and moving” The Sydney Morning Herald A simple planisphere or star wheel can be rotated to indicate what stars and constellations are visible at any one time and place. The basic pattern followed today is that of the ancient Greeks and all of those given in Ptolemy's Algamest (dating from c.150 AD) are still in use. Just as the play makes the point that there is no singularity in the moment, there is no single play here either, despite both casts speaking the same lines. Atim and Jeremiah have the edge for comedy and pace. They conjure an instant chemistry and bring out every last laugh, as well as switching cleanly between moods. When the darkness comes, its contrast is all the more dramatic. There is less naturalism to Capaldi and Wanamaker’s performance, which feels more overtly theatrical at first, but they mellow and bring a meditative quality, both cuter and more melancholic. The story gathers different shades too, with the comparatively older pair of actors performing it. No matter which version of Marianne’s story she is playing, Morris is open and impassioned, with Gleeson’s droll, sometimes bewildered Roland a perfectly understated foil to her energy. Beneath a canopy of chandeliers the couple’s image is reflected in designer Molly O’Cathain’s mirrored surfaces and ceiling, with snapping shifts in time and place gorgeously created by Paul Keogan’s clusters of light and Liz Roche’s movement direction.Suppose that life exists in a multiverse -- a set of parallel existences that contain infinitely different futures. The possibilities in our lives are, quite literally, endless. Every possible event that could happen, does happen, in one universe or another. And if two lovers meet -- are drawn together in every version of existence -- every possible happy ending and heartbreak that could befall them, will. As heartrending as it is splendid, Constellations tells the story of beekeeper Roland, and quantum physicist Marianne: two (literally) star-crossed lovers whose relationship we see in a series of different ‘what if?’ variations – their joy and heartbreak, their laughter and quarrels, their break-ups and make-ups. The result is a rich, compelling and sensitive love story that reflects on the power of human connection in a seemingly random universe.