Two Stars Shine in “Constellations”

Stories that unfold in multiple universes have undeniable appeal. Who wouldn’t want to think that just because things aren’t so swell here, they’re not better — or at least different — on some parallel plane? Cases in point: Broadway’s If/Then, David Ives’ comic Sure Thing, the films Sliding Doors and Groundhog Day, and so on. The “multiverse play” gets an appealing entry with Constellations, a two-character drama by young British playwright Nick Payne now having its American premiere, with Jake Gyllenhaal and newly minted Golden Globe winner Ruth Wilson (Showtime’s The Affair) making their Broadway debuts. Constellations has just opened at the MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Amid examples of the genre, Constellations raises the stakes by introducing a female lead with an academic background in nothing less than quantum mechanics. Wilson’s Marianne studies “theoretical early universe cosmology” at Cambridge University, and believes that at any given moment, several outcomes of any event can co-exist simultaneously.  “In the Quantum Multiverse,” she explains to Gyllenhaal’s wholly rapt Roland, a charming beekeeper, “every decision you’ve ever and never made exists in an unimaginably vast ensemble of parallel universes.” (With kudos to the playwright, there’s not a suggestion of classism apparent between the two.)