KARACHI: A few years back, Nick Payne’s play Constellations created quite a buzz among theatre lovers in England. The reason for it, as per critics’ reviews, was the insightful manner in which the playwright fused the scientific notion, nay concept, of the multiverse with the ever intriguing phenomenon of the man-woman relationship.

It was but natural that drama buffs flocked to the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) on Thursday night where Constellations, directed by Gregory Thompson, was being staged as part of the first international presentation in the ongoing fourth theatre festival.

Here’s the thing. The first impression that one got after seeing the play, which was co-presented with the Big Brother like presence of the prompters, was that: the script is a triumph.

Why? Because the way it deals with cosmic issues on an apparent level and connects them to the lives of two individuals who come from different, perhaps diametrically opposed, backgrounds. Roland (Ali Junejo) is a beekeeper and Marianne (Aiman Tariq) is a theoretical physicist. The lines are, to put it simply, mind-blowing. Take for example this oft-quoted gem that Marianne utters:

“In the quantum multiverse, every choice, every decision you’ve ever made and never made exists in an unimaginably vast ensemble of parallel universes.” It is impossible not to go ‘wow’ after listening to this. But alas! It wasn’t said the way it was supposed to be said.

Aiman Tariq looked and sounded ring-rusty. She’s made a stage appearance after a while. Although there were moments where she captured the spirit of the character, especially when she is disclosing to Roland about the disease that she’s suffering from, on the whole it seemed that she (mis)took the character for a regular, intelligent woman. Marianne is more than that.

She is a metaphor, a symbol suggesting life cannot be taken as a linear movement. The peaks and troughs, the infinite possibilities that she touches upon when she is describing the existence of other universes to Roland, of the possibilities of choices made or not made, are hints about something that human beings tend to conveniently ignore.

Still, the actress should not be taken to task solely. As her director told the audience before the show, she and Ali Junejo had only three days to prepare the play. This also clarifies the plainness of the set. There were no fancy locales to suggest a starry firmament. If that had been there, it would’ve made some difference.

Constellations tells the tale of theoretical physicist Marianne and Roland, a beekeeper whom she meets, gets close to and is romantically involved with in the course of the play. Their relationship is not one-dimensional, just like the parallel universes that the physicist loves to talk about.

The back and forth movement in the script, again, is indicative of the various possibilities that exist, which we, as humans, sometimes opt for, sometimes not. Things take a sad turn when it is found out that Marianne is suffering from a deadly disease. And the play moves towards its denouement.

Ali Junejo, too, had his issues with the pace of the story, but he was more believable as Roland. His passionate explanation of the different types of bees — “There are three kinds of bees: the drones, the workers and a single, solitary queen… Honeybees have an unfailing clarity of purpose. Their lives are often intensely short.” — was special.

One knew that his reference to the intensely ‘short lives’ was a tip-off to the viewer, or the listener, about another imminent death. He was convincing. Kudos!

Published in Dawn March 13th, 2015

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