*Premise spoilers.*
The last time I scrolled through National Theatre Live’s streaming options, I was delighted to find a play starring Peter Capaldi. This is a very interesting project, and it looks like there’s even more to it than what I’ve watched—I’ll have to investigate further!
Roland and Marianne meet at a barbecue thrown by their mutual friends. They hit it off, or they don’t. Or things go wrong. Or they split up. Or they get back together. Or forces bigger than either of them interfere. Like ripples in a pond of the multiverse, everything they experience together can take them in several different directions.
I enjoyed this play a lot. It’s very short, just over an hour, but I discovered that National Theatre Live offers four versions of it with different casts (one of them has Russell Tovey!) While I’ve only seen this one, starring Peter Capaldi and Zoë Wanamaker, it would be interesting to check out the others for even more multiversal possibilities. I’m curious if they all have the same script, barring minor tweaks, or if the different casts take the set-up in different directions.
The multiverse has been all the rage lately, between recent Marvel and DC offerings and—of course—Everything Everywhere All at Once. I like the angle that Constellations takes with it. We don’t get really wild and out there in exploring drastically different universes. Like, there’s no universe where Roland and Marianne are rocks or anything. Instead, we get their story in bite-sized chunks, with each choice presenting several different possibilities before we move forward.
Let’s take their first meeting, where Marianne brings up a random factoid about it being impossible to lick one’s elbows. At first, Roland curtly tells Marianne that he’s with someone. The scene resets and we see it again, only now he’s just gotten out of a difficult relationship. Another reset, but this time he engages and goes along with trying to lick his elbow.
We see each scenario play out in multiple ways, but instead of following different divergences, it’s like the characters get stuck in place until they find the universe that will advance their story together. They run into a lot of dead ends—along the way, there are so many choices that will cut their relationship off short. But eventually, they find one that will take them to their next big choice, and that’s the one that we follow.
Naturally, this means seeing the same scenarios play out in different ways. Sometimes they’re taken in new directions. Sometimes we get the same scene repeated word for word, but the inflections are different, completely changing the feel of it. Sometimes we see a few versions of the same scenario but then one pops up where Roland and Marianne’s roles are reversed. On one occasion, they both communicate in sign language.
Capaldi does a great job as Roland. He’s still the same basic guy in every iteration—again, the universes we’re exploring aren’t drastically different from one another—so it’s mainly his reactions that change, not his actual character. He’s a beekeeper who’s kind of nerdy and a bit awkward. Sometimes he’s bolder, sometimes he’s brusquer, sometimes he’s shyer. I like how all of them are believable as the same person and how he can bring such different energy to the same or similar scenes.
He plays really well off Zoë Wanamaker’s Marianne. The two of them are basically doing this delicate multiversal dance together throughout the play, skipping like a record through different possibilities for their relationship. Neither character is especially remarkable or heroic, but Capaldi and Wanamaker’s very human performances made me invested in what happens to them.
Accent Watch
Scottish.
Recommend?
In General – I think so. Again, it’s only an hour long, so it’s not a big commitment, and I thought it was interesting and well done.
Peter Capaldi – Yes. This role brings some neat challenges, and Capaldi meets them every time!
Warnings
Language, sexual references, drinking references, and thematic elements.
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