Constellations
From: Friday, 13th January 2012
To: Saturday, 11 February 2012
Our Review: 
Your Reviews:
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Synopsis
"Let's go for a drink. I don't know what I'm doing here anyway. One drink. And if you never want to see me again you never have to see me again." One relationship. Infinite possibilities. Quantum multiverse theory, love and honey. An explosive new play about free will and friendship.
Our Review:
Michael Coveney - 20 January 2012
Here’s an absolute delight, a little gem of a play by Nick Payne, a playwright who’s been bubbling under at the Royal Court for a while, performed to perfection by Sally Hawkins and Rafe Spall on a simple raised square platform under a night sky of white balloons.
Michael Longhurst’s deft, highly skilled production, designed by Tom Scutt, is only 70 minutes long, but dense with affection and longing, pain and regret, as beekeeper Roland (Spall) and Sussex University cosmologist Marianne (Hawkins) meet at a barbecue, have an affair, separate, meet up again and face life, death and the universe with, on the whole, humorous equanimity.
Scenes are replayed with different emphases, and in parallel scenarios, or universes, at first flippantly offering alternative versions of the truth but increasingly suggesting a world of preferences and second chances. Marianne has a dying mother and occasional symptoms herself of neurological disorder and dise...
Latest User Review
Gareth James - 22 February 2012:
What an intriguing, fascinating and challenging 65 minutes this is. Nick Payne’s play tells the story of a relationship from first meeting at a friends BBQ to its tragic and premature end, but it’s actually relationships plural – happening in parallel universes – I think. It’s a two-hander performed on a platform with no props. The audience sits on all four sides. The ceiling is obscured by white balloons through which light shines. Most scenes are played out a handful of times, though each one is in some way different, depending on the universe? Somehow it tells a captivating human story / stories. It owes something in structure to Caryl Churchill’s A Number and in production style to Mike Bartlett’s Cock (the play!), but it’s a highly original piece. It’s great to see actors of the calibre of Sally Hawkins & Rafe Spall rise to such challenging roles in a small intimate space without the aid of set, props or music. These performances are raw and thrilling. Part of me feels privileged to be one of only a few thousand who will see them, but the other part feels sad that they will only be seen by as many people as fill the Olivier on just three nights – not that it would work in the Olivier. Lets see them both in something that would on one of our big stages soon please. Plays that play with structure are often clever but don’t entertain. I’m not sure I fully understand this one, but it was both stimulating and satisfying ...
Cast
Rafe Spall (Roland)
Sally Hawkins (Marianne)
Creative
Nick Payne (Author)
Coutts (Corporate Sponsor)
Royal Court Theatre (Producer)
Michael Longhurst (Director)
Tom Scutt (Design)
Lee Curran (Lighting)
Simon Slater (Music)
David McSeveney (Sound)
Information
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