I watched the amazing ‘Constellations’ by Nick Payne the other evening. This version from the Donmar starred Russell Tovey and Omar Douglas. You can see it on stream from the Donmar over January 2022.
This was such an emotional rollercoaster. I don’t think I have seen a two hander like it, ever. Omar Douglas was sublime with sinuous felinity as Manuel the cosmologist; he transported emotions beyond the stars. I don’t think I have ever been so desperate for someone to say yes to a marriage proposal. Tovey was all rugged vulnerability but utterly believable as Roland the beekeeper. The versatility of these two as they restarted scene after scene was incredible.
The plot focuses round a couple who get together at a barbeque, split, then reconnect until (spoiler) one of them develops a brain tumour and considers euthanasia. We ride with them through the maybes and ups and downs somehow structurally mirroring the ideas of quantum physics and parallel universe.
Ever since ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist,’ I have loved the secret code with names. In Payne’s original version, Emanuel/Manuel is Marianne, which means ‘star of the sea’ or apparently in French symbolism, liberty and reason. Given that Emanuel is ‘God with us’, I am pretty convinced that Payne is playing with the cosmologist role here, along with all the secondary ideas about how the stars got there and theories of the existence of God. The role is the initiator too, so Marianne/Manuel starts the ‘big bang’ that is this relationship. And Roland is ‘renowned land’ (although, in all fairness, as it had ‘land’ in the name, you should just realise) so he is the sublunary and she/Manuel is the skies and stars.
The dynamic between them continues this: Roland as earth bound/Marianne as expansive/open theme too. As Marianne/Manuel’s world closes in with the diagnosis, the character looks to escape abroad. Payne cleverly and repeatedly comes back to ideas about whether we have any free will or if we are randomly spinning in a careless universe, and if time is linear and spaces always liminal. There are references to string theory too, but my knowledge of quantum physics isn’t quite up to making much of them, although I am sure that is an added dimension for some.
This would be an average love story without the structural subplot. Of course, it is dramatically hard to do a good two-hander and not lose pace as well, but Payne is a craftsman at keeping attention as we swoop through time. The dialogue is convincing, even on repeat, which always helps to fully immerse the audience. Rather than finding the repeated scenes boring because they only had slight variations on what was heard before, it was wonderful to watch two incredible actors reprise and bring something new. As a stage device, it worked to illustrate the possibilities of a different time/space in an articulate and illuminating way. The Guardian called it ‘smart’ and ‘slushy’ – oxymoronic words that sum up something that is greater than the sum of its parts.
