Constellations

Red Turnip Theater stages “Constellations”, a play by Nick Payne, directed by Rem Zamora. Prepare to swoon in this Asian premiere of
a love story that transcends time and space, starring Aliw Award winner and three-time Gawad Buhay Award winner for Best Actress,
Cris Villonco, and Gawad Urian Best Actor nominee, JC Santos.
Constellations runs from February 6 to March 12 at Power Mac Center Spotlight, 2/F Circuit Lane, Circuit Makati, A.P. Reyes Avenue,
Barangay Carmona, Makati City.
Constellations - Play by Nick Payne
Constellations is a two-hander play by the English playwright Nick Payne. First performance: 19 January 2012
Characters: Roland; Marianne Written by Nick Payne
Playwright: Nick Payne Characters Roland & Marianne
Composer: Simon Slater Date premiered January 19, 2012
Place premiered: London Place premiered Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London

Constellations: A Play Paperback – December 16, 2014 "A singular astonishment." ―John Lahr, The New Yorker
One relationship. Infinite possibilities.
In the beginning Marianne and Roland meet at a party. They go
for a drink, or perhaps they don't. They fall madly in love and
start dating, but eventually they break up. After a chance
encounter in a supermarket they get back together, or maybe
they run into each other and Marianne reveals that she's now
engaged to someone else and that's that. Or perhaps Roland is
engaged. Maybe they get married, or maybe their time together
will be tragically short.
Nick Payne's Constellations is a play about free will and
friendship; it's also about quantum multiverse theory, love, and
honey.
"Isang kulang na pagkamangha." -John Lahr, Ang New Yorker
Isang relasyon. Walang-hangganang posibilidad.
Sa simula sina Marianne at Roland nakasalubong sa isang
party. Sila ay pumunta para sa isang inumin, o marahil ay hindi
nila. Sila ay nahulog nang husto sa pag-ibig at nagsimulang
makipag-date, ngunit sa huli ay nagsisira sila. Pagkatapos ng
isang pagkakataon makatagpo sa isang supermarket
magkakaroon sila bumalik magkasama, o marahil sila tumakbo
sa bawat isa at Marianne ay nagpapakita na siya ay nakatuon
ngayon sa ibang tao at na iyon. O marahil ay nakatuon si
Roland. Marahil ay nagpakasal sila, o marahil ang kanilang oras
magkasama ay magiging maikli.
Ang Mga Konstelasyon ni Nick Payne ay isang pag-play tungkol
sa malayang kalooban at pagkakaibigan; ito ay tungkol sa
quantum multiverse theory, love, at honey.

Book Overview:
One relationship. Infinite possibilities. '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'. Nick Payne's "Constellations" is a play about free will and friendship; it's about quantum
multiverse theory, love and honey. "Constellations" premiered at the Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in January
2012..
Plot Summary

The play follows Roland, a beekeeper, and Marianne, a cosmologist through their romantic
relationship. Marianne often waxes poetic about cosmology, quantum mechanics, string
theory and the belief that there are multiple universes that pull peoples' lives in various
directions. This is reflected in the play's structure as brief scenes are repeated, often with
different outcomes.

Roland and Marianne meet at a barbecue and become romantically involved. After they've
moved in together, a confession of infidelity causes them to break up. After some time, they
run in to each other at a ballroom dancing class, resume their relationship, and eventually
marry. Marianne begins to forget words and has trouble typing. She is told by her doctor that
she has a tumor in her frontal lobe and has less than a year to live. She eventually seeks
assisted suicide abroad with Roland's support. The play ends with a flashback to the scene
where Roland and Marianne rekindle their relationship in the dance class.

Buod

Ang larong ito ay sinusundan ni Roland, isang tagapag-alaga ng hayop, at si Marianne, isang
kosmolohista sa pamamagitan ng kanilang romantikong relasyon. Si Marianne ay madalas
na tumutula tungkol sa kosmolohiya, mekanika ng quantum, teorya ng string at ang
paniniwala na mayroong maraming mga uniberso na kumukuha ng mga buhay ng mga tao
sa iba't ibang direksyon. Ito ay makikita sa istraktura ng pag-play habang ang mga maikling
eksena ay paulit-ulit, madalas na may iba't ibang mga kinalabasan.

Nakilala ni Roland at Marianne sa isang barbecue at naging romantically kasangkot. Matapos

nilang lumipat nang sama-sama, ang isang pag-amin ng kawalang-katapatan ay
nagpapahirap sa kanila. Matapos ang ilang oras, tumakbo sila sa isa't isa sa isang klase ng
ballroom dancing, ipagpatuloy ang kanilang relasyon, at sa pag-aasawa. Nagsimulang
malimutan ni Marianne ang mga salita at may problema sa pag-type. Sinabi sa kanya ng
kanyang doktor na siya ay may tumor sa kanyang frontal umbok at may mas mababa sa
isang taon upang mabuhay. Sa huli ay hinahanap niya ang pagtulong sa pagpapakamatay
sa ibang bansa kasama ang suporta ni Roland. Nagtatapos ang pag-play na may isang
flashback sa tanawin kung saan Roland at Marianne rekindle ang kanilang relasyon sa klase
ng sayaw.
Nick Payne's Constellations
Premiere at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre
By: Nancy Bishop - Jun 06, 2016

Constellations, the new two-character play at Steppenwolf Theatre, is certainly a

nonlinear story. Marianne (Jessie Fisher) and Roland (Jon Michael Hill) at times seem to
be in parallel universes. She, an academic theoretical physicist, and he, a beekeeper.

Their story, written by Nick Payne, is the cycle of love and the angst of
miscommunication. They meet, fall in love, live together, commit infidelity, break up,
get together again, marry, endure illness and face death. And they take ballroom
dancing lessons. The 80-minute production is also brimming with intriguing intellectual
dialogues and monologues about quantum mechanics, string theory, bee colonies, free
will and time. But don’t fret if you’ve forgotten everything you learned in college
physics. Payne writes Marianne’s excursions into physics in a disarmingly offhand way.

Marianne is diagnosed with a brain tumor that explains why she has been having trouble
speaking and typing. A scene in sign language dramatizes her precious cognitive ability.
In other scenes, she and Roland go back and forth about treatment and its ultimate
resolution. Is it grade one or four?

Marianne: The basic laws of physics- The b-b-basic laws of physics don’t have a past and a present.
Time is irrelevant at the level of a-atoms and molecules. It’s symmetrical. We have all the time
we’ve always had. You’ll still have all our time. There’s not going to be any more or less of it.
Once I’m gone.

The scenes in Constellations repeat each other, double back and repeat again, sometimes
with text changes, sometimes not. Roland prefaces a marriage proposal with a speech
about the simplicity and inevitability of the lives of bees, which defines the ability to
make choices as very human. Playwright Nick Payne shows us a realistic relationship
between two people with its ebbs and flows over time. It makes you think about your
own relationships, past and present. Really, would you say any of them have been
shaped in a linear fashion?

Jonathan Berry’s excellent direction paces the scenes seamlessly and yet makes the
characters’ verbal feats perfectly clear to the audience. Jessie is brainy, articulate. Roland,
although coming from a different background, is serious and thoughtful as he listens to
her conjectures on life and relativity. After leaving the play, I could not get it out of my
mind. And the more I thought about Constellations, the clearer it seemed that Marianne’s
and Roland’s story could not have been more lucid or more beautifully constructed by
playwright Payne. A love scene progresses like this:

Marianne. Quantum mechanics focuses on the quantum realm. Atoms, molecules…. On nuclear
and atomic scales, gravity is pretty much insignificant. But in terms of General Relativity, it’s
vital.

Roland. Okay

Marianne. So you’ve these two theories that are completely at odds with one another. Relativity
covers the sun, the moon, the stars while quantum mechanics takes care of molecules, quarks,
atoms- that sort of thing. We’ve effectively asked the same question twice and come up with two
completely different answers.

Roland. This is really sexy by the way.

Marianne. But now we’ve got String Theory. Or, to be a bit more specific, we’ve got lots of
different string theories-

Roland. If you’d rather I didn’t stay you just have to say.

Marianne. And the exciting thing about String Theory is that it potentially bridges the gap
between Relativity and-

Roland. You haven’t answered either of my questions. (Marianne kisses Roland.)

Marianne. A by-product of every single one of these theories – almost entirely by accident – is
the possibility that we’re part of a Multiverse.

The flow of scenes is enhanced by the gloriously minimalistic set design by Joe
Schermoly. Set in Steppenwolf’s Upstairs Theatre, the backdrop is a beautiful, billowy
wave or cloud of offwhite sculpted material. On either side of the stage are geometric
metal frames that occasionally snap and sparkle, like lightning or perhaps the synapses
of the brain. Heather Gilbert’s lighting design guides us through the narrative.
Christopher Kriz created sound design and original music.

British playwright Payne’s work has won recognition in the U.K and the
U.S. Constellations played on Broadway last year and his newest play, Incognito, deals
with matters of love and neuroscience. Clearly, he’s a writer in the mold of
playwright Tom Stoppard and novelist Richard Powers. Payne also adapted the Julian
Barnes novel, The Sense of an Ending, for film; it’s to be released this year. (In two
sentences, I have managed to name three of my favorite writers!)