Exploring one’s parallel lives

Theatre
Constellations
Splendid, Strait Street

To wonder what a situation might have turned out to be like had the context remained the same but the variables changed, has for years been on the minds of artists and scientists alike.

Television and film representations have proliferated over the years. From Sliders to Fringe to Sliding Doors, the concept of parallel ‘multiverses’, and the idea that each one might have different outcomes to any given situation, is fascinating to any audience.

WhatsTheirNames Theatre’s latest offering, a production of Nick Payne’s Constellations, proved to be a worthy exploration of such a concept.

Director Philip Leone-Ganado kept the stage simple and the direction clean, with a projected backdrop left in the able hands of sound and music designer Mario Sammut. This backdrop helped bridge the gaps between the intertwining streams of consciousness which the two characters, Roland and Marianne, sometimes had – when the most significant of their lines echoed from one of the infinite possibilities of the past.

Nathan Brimmer’s Roland first meets Marianne, played by Maria Pia Meli, at a friend’s barbecue and the different possibilities of their hitting it off and dating are explored – from unavailability, to brushing off, to lack of interest and, finally, to the spark. The idea of interconnectivity is at the forefront of matters, in a play which explores characterisation based on the two individuals’ choices and how their varying decisions change their manner of interaction.

With each short scene being repeated over several times to indicate a change in choice or reaction, the only warning given to the audience was a sharp click at the start of each new gyration – rather like the clicks used in children’s audio-books from the 1970s and 1980s which reminded you when to turn the page.

It was a pity that this two-hander had such limited audience seating because Payne’s script, to which these two young actors did full justice, was truly a case of art imitating life.

How many times has the idea purported by Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken, been mulled over? Brimmer and Meli explored these varying paths which led from the beginning of a new relationship to the trails of living together, infidelity, a break-up, a reconciliation, a proposal and the threat of illness – the big C ruining their love.

Brimmer’s Roland, a beekeeper, could have focused a tad more on clarity, but otherwise gave an endearingly good performance as a man in love with Meli’s well-rounded Marianne, an astrophysicist. Their jobs are not to be easily discounted – bees use complex, gyrating dance-like movements to communicate genuine messages and the concept of the stars Marianne studies enriches the imagery to no end with intimations as to whether the future is written in the stars and whether the light we see is merely an imprint or memory of a time long gone.

The two actors’ clearly well-matched dynamic and their heartfelt rendering of their character’s predicaments showed a sensitive reading and understanding of the permutations of human relationships, while Leone-Ganado’s clear vision kept the repetitive action fast-paced.

In the end, what matters is to have experienced – to have lived means to have risked. The beauty of Payne’s message lies at the end of the play despite Marianne’s illness – in another version, the story might end differently, more positively even. Time loses its relevance when it can be rewritten, so that happiness may be achieved as the ultimate goal in an infinite loop.