Review: CONSTELLATIONS at West End Players Guild is a Bittersweet Nugget of Relationship Reality

It is fate, or is it our behavior and choices that create our destiny? Nick Payne’s CONSTELLATIONS examines the relationship between a young British couple and the different scenarios that could determine their happiness and disappointments.  

As his play opens, Payne introduces the audience to Marianne and Roland, a twenty-something woman and man who begin dating after meeting at a friend's BBQ. CONSTELLATIONS examines a handful of the infinite possibilities of what life has in store for the couple.  

Stories like Payne’s have been seen in both film and theater. Peter Howitt’s 1998 film “Sliding Doors” examines dual paths of how a woman’s life is altered by a simple twist of fate based on whether she barely makes a subway train or the doors close causing her to wait for the next train.  

Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey examined a similar fork-in-the-road scenario in their 2014 musical IF/THEN led by Idina Menzel. Yorkey’s book had dueling narratives based on how a different path changes the outcome for his protagonist.  

Payne’s story is significantly more complex. It examines multiple different routes for his protagonist and antagonist. The many plots are determined by his characters reactionary dialogue. Marianne and Roland’s fortunes are determined by how they react to one another’s behavior. 

Success in staging CONSTELLATIONS comes down to two things, strong directorial vision and how well the director prepares their actors. Without strong direction, Payne’s complicated labyrinth would flounder and stumble along. 

Credit director Karen Pierce with terrific storytelling and outstanding pacing. Her choices in staging, scene change, and lighting design were structured, streamlined and methodical. Her storytelling clarity was further enhanced by Ted Drury’s precise sound design. Pierce readied her actors to take on the repetitive script while keeping each scene fresh, crisp, and unambiguous. 

The well-rehearsed actors, Summer Baer (Marianne) and Caleb D. Long (Roland), comfortably handle Payne’s knotty and tangled scenes with ease. Both showed strong command of the duplicative dialogue and delivered their lines with an authentic sounding British dialect. Baer’s effort was superior, but Long’s was passable with noticeable accented consistency on specific words and vowels.  

The luminous Baer and contemplative Long give believable portrayals that are layered with appropriate emotional context. Their connection was discernable, and their feelings were raw, transparent, and unmistakable. Pierce afforded them the opportunity to be emotionally demonstrative with stellar directorial oversight ensuring the actors were well-conditioned, conversational, and effusive.  

West End Players Guild’s production of CONSTELLATIONS is a bittersweet dose of reality. It is a relationship story more than a love story. Payne examines how we react to two things in life, our partner’s behaviors and what the fates hand us. No one can predict when, or if, life will bring happiness, heartbreak, pain, or loss. It simply must be lived to be experienced.  

CONSTELLATIONS continues at West End Player’s Guild through this Sunday, February 16, 2025. Click the link below to purchase tickets.  

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