Constellations – Donmar Theatre/Vaudeville Theatre, London

A review of Constellations, currently on in a Donmar production at the Vaudeville Theatre with not one but four alternating casts. What better way to explore the multiverse than by exponentially multiplying the ‘what ifs’?

“Everything You’ve Ever, And Never, Done.”

Constellations is an interesting and pretty intellectual play. Written by Nick Payne and first staged by the Royal Court in 2012, it is the tale of Marianne, a quantum physicist, and Roland, a beekeeper, who meet at a barbeque. Their love story becomes a tragedy as Marianne is diagnosed with and succumbs to a brain tumour. Or at least in most of the timelines.

Because this is a story which takes as its premise the theory of the multiverse – that we live in one of an infinite number of universes. Across all of these universes every possible scenario plays out – “Everything you’ve ever, and never, done,” as Marianne puts it. In one universe Roland is married when they meet. In another, they don’t hit it off. They split up and get back together. They split up and don’t. The tumour is benign. The tumour is not. The two actors skip around the multiverse, a different universe in play each time the lights come back up. It takes a little getting used to, but is a refreshingly different concept for a piece of theatre.

Director Michael Longhurst also directed the original 2012 production. Plus some subsequent transfers, including to the West End (which I happened to see) with Rafe Spall and Sally Hawkins. But as he notes in the programme, it’s been a 30-something white couple every time. This time around, he has the opportunity to direct very different couples in Constellations; with four different casts across a couple of months. There is a young Black couple (Sheila Atim and Ivanno Jeremiah), an older couple (Peter Capaldi and Zoë Wanamaker), a queer couple (Omari Douglas and Russell Tovey), and a 40-something white couple (Anna Maxwell Martin and Chris O’Dowd).

Constellations: Same Play, Different Impacts

I couldn’t limit myself to just one of these casts, so it’s the middle two that I went for. But what better way to expand the multiverse concept than by playing out the story of Marianne/Manuel and Roland in all of these permutations? Zoë Wanamaker and Peter Capaldi were the ones that I saw first, and I was surprised that I was a little underwhelmed. Constellations is very funny at times but is also a very emotional story. I didn’t quite connect with Wanamaker and Capaldi as a couple and was therefore not as devastated by the events which unfolded.

It was a different story with Omari Douglas and Russell Tovey. Very few text changes were actually needed to swap out a Marianne for a Manuel. Douglas and Tovey had great chemistry, and wrung a lot more humour out of the text. I was far more invested in them as a couple; as a result, the unhappy timelines had much more of an emotional connection.

It is so rare to have an opportunity like this to understand the impact that individual actors have on a production. Sometimes there are plays like Changing Destiny where actors alternate roles. But it’s not common to have a play where the director, creative team, set, etc., are all the same, but multiple casts rehearse and perform it in their own ways. Such a treat to have been able to compare and contrast two versions – I only wish I could have made it to them all.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3.5/5

Constellations on with final two casts until 12 September 2021

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