An elegant dance through space and time, Nick Payne’s Constellations explores myriad possibilities in the intersecting lives of lovers Roland (Tony K. Nam) and Marianne (Dina Soltan). From multiple versions of their first meeting, through different permutations of their relationship’s end, the action alights abruptly from one juncture in their romance to another.
The award-winning drama’s twisted chronology might hover for a moment over one of the pair’s first dates, then loop through the fallout of a date gone wrong. In thought-provoking repeats and reversals, Constellations constructs a portrait of the couple, informed by the many potential outcomes of their every encounter.
Told as a series of fragmented scenes and pivot points, gradually a cohesive story emerges. And somehow, even through its non-linear structure, the play conveys a beginning, middle, and end to the tale of Roland and Marianne, while also suggesting their story transcends such limited concepts.
Across an infinite number of parallel universes, versions of Roland and Marianne might be living out countless iterations of what happens after the beekeeper and the scientist strike up a conversation.
That engaging sense of possibility is aptly reflected in the spirit and design of director Nikki Mirza’s production at Constellation Theatre. Opening the company’s 18th season — honoring the theme of Infinite Possibilities — the show’s pace and mood leap and turn in tune with the plot.
And physically, the action bounces around in a nonlinear fashion, too, with the two actors traversing the nebulous space of Sarah Reed’s futuristic set. It seems the countless parallel multiverses converge in an empty nightclub on a 25th-century spaceship, except Buck Rogers is nowhere to be found.
Alberto Segarra lights the space beautifully, from the ceiling to the floor, where translucent risers and boxes lit from within serve to fill in the picture of various locations. Largely, though, it’s up to Nam and Soltan to shape Roland and Marianne’s many realities.
Mirza has the pair cued up splendidly throughout, bouncing ably from tense emotional scenarios to scenes hingeing on completely opposite emotions without missing a beat. In the course of Marianne and Roland’s epic romance(s), they experience ecstatic highs of love, and face their share of adversity, including a serious illness for her.
Soltan imbues her with smarts and dignity as Marianne unravels in a poignant passage that finds her afraid of losing her mental grasp. Then, both performers find notes of bitter truth portraying respective sides of scenarios where Marianne cheats on Roland, and when he cheats on her.
This couple rarely argues quietly, and the heat of their anger can be potent. The same cannot be said about the heat of their desire. By design, or some lapse in characterization, this Roland and Marianne don’t generate the heat of two star-crossed lovers whose ineffable hunger for one another burns across untold universes.
Rather than two bodies bound to orbit one another forever, they’re like an adorable sitcom couple. Their romance registers as fairly lightweight, beset, in some cases, by grave circumstances, but, on most days, pleasantly ordinary. Yet, that’s the play’s sweet spot, swimming in those tender, ordinary emotions that one lays bare usually only to a lover or other partner in pursuing life’s infinite possibilities.
Constellations (★★★★☆) runs through March 9 at the Source Theatre, 1835 14th St. NW. Tickets are $24 to $56. Call 202-204-7741, or visit www.constellationtheatre.org.
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