Emily Anne Corcoran and Anthony Goncharov in “Constellations”, Photo by Desmond Lazar
A physicist and a beekeeper meet at a barbecue. It sounds like the set-up for a corny joke. Though Nick Payne’s highly conceptual two-hander, presented by Icarus Theatre, has plenty of disarming humour, Constellations is ultimately heartbreaking. Roland (Anthony Goncharov) with his hive-managing and honey, Marianne (Emily Anne Corcoran) with her stars and string theory, find themselves in a romantic, quantum entanglement and seized by cosmic delirium.
Their barbecue meet-cute establishes the play’s primary stylistic mechanism—repetition of the same moments, over and over again, with slight variations. In fits and starts, this initial awkward encounter gets snagged on circumstantial obstacles—he’s not single, he’s recovering from a break-up, the chemistry is all wrong, etc. Something eventually catches and the two embark on an experientially kaleidoscopic relationship.
We become intimately familiar with patches of ad nauseam dialogue, each minor variance provides novelty to the repetition and carries thematic resonance. The little deviations are like glitches in the matrix, a multiverse of random potentialities, while also revealing character and giving us a deeper understanding of their situation.
One of the charms of Payne’s script is that it feels as if we’re sifting through fragments of fluctuating memory, careering between giddiness and fatigue. At the core, we fixate on these essential, seemingly inevitable truths: there is an infidelity, a break-up, a reunion and, crucially, a fatal illness. All of this is rendered with nuance and authenticity by Goncharov and Corcoran, who are absolutely endearing throughout—save for a jarring moment of violence. Though unpleasant, even that flash of sinister intent helps enrich and humanize their complex dynamic.
Director Connor Briggs grounds the contrived theatrical grammar of the play by fixating on naturalistic and telling shifts in tone and behaviour. The design team, Lidia Foote (lighting) and Amit Kumar (sound), maintain a charged atmosphere by balancing rigorous formalism with flights of fancy. Scene transitions, often in quick succession, are punctuated by a signature sound cue similar to the iconic Law & Order sting. The stage is bare except for an expanse of hanging bulbs that twinkle and blink out in random formations—Roland and Marianne’s attentive stars realigning themselves around them.
There is an overall warmth to this understated spectacle, so the singular, ominous coolness that defines their recurring, devastating conversation about her neurological deterioration is particularly sobering. Her stumbling over words seems to echo the cosmic hiccups of their whole relationship and is deeply unsettling in its suggestion of her looming fate. Having Goncharov’s back to us each time we revisit this moment is disconcerting. Staging it in profile would have been a more comfortable choice. I desperately wanted to see his face and wondered if this blocking was purposeful, adding further unease to an already sad and baleful scene. If so, it succeeds.
In an especially beautiful moment, Marianne draws on the theoretical physics that have shaped her worldview to comfort Roland with a lyrical mediation on time that is simultaneously academic and whimsical. This notion of time—their time, our time—as both a construct and lived reality, is profoundly touching.
As wrenching as this story is, there is bracing hope in its myriad re-enactments. Having also been won over by their well-executed Fiji earlier this year, I’m really digging Icarus Theatre’s mastery of intriguing, emotionally provocative duets.
Constellations
running August 16 to 23, 2024
Tarragon Theatre Extraspace (30 Bridgeman Ave.)
running time: 70 minutes (no intermission)
Emily Anne Corcoran and Anthony Goncharov in “Constellations”, Photo by Desmond Lazar