“I was feeling a little limited by a two-person play,” explains director Maggie Roop, who is also one of the co-founders of the Yes, And! Theatrical Company. “Actors are so hungry for opportunities. I was thinking, ‘I wish there was a way to offer more opportunities with this project.’”
The project Roop is talking about is “Constellations,” a celebrated experimental play by Nick Payne that follows the relationship between Roland, a beekeeper, and Marianne, a quantum physicist. The play has garnered acclaim for the clever way it introduces the concept of a multiverse into a theatrical setting, with some scenes playing out multiple times with small changes that result in different outcomes.
Already a pretty trippy prospect for a director, Roop wanted to take it to the next level. “My husband, Adam, was like, ‘Have you heard about the production they did in the West End where they had three or four pairs of actors?’” she says.
That idea was a springboard to her final concept: Assemble a team of actors who would each learn both parts and then be paired together in different permutations. Working with a cast of four, that means the show has 10 different pairings of actor and character, or 10 different ways the show is constructed.
Roop was prepared to jettison the concept if it proved unwieldy but says her cast has run with the idea. “They’re all the types of actors who are going to have a blast doing it,” she says. “They’re all getting really comfortable with each other and finding their chemistry with one another. I think they’re going to do a great job kind of working on their toes.”
The cast includes John Michael Jalonen, Marie Lucas, Ashley Thompson, and Adam Turck. Thompson and Turck have already worked together, playing a couple in the well-received “Buried Child” last season at Firehouse, with Thompson winning an award for breakout performance in part for that show.
“Thankfully, I was a little bit familiar with the play,” says Thompson. “But I’ve never faced the challenge of having to know verbatim both people’s lines in a scene.”
Because some pairings will result in an actor playing a character who is a different gender, she says they’ve had to really dig into some of the dialogue.
“We have to get our magnifying glasses out every now and then and be like, let’s really look at this line,” Thompson says. “If we think of it from the audience’s perspective, is this jarring? Do we need to change this pronoun here?”
Roop says the show highlights the idea of life’s endless possibilities in kind of an extreme way, a concept she wanted to extend even to the set design for the show.
“I wanted there to be a backdrop to the action that was sort of ethereal and supportive of the energy of the play,” says Roop. “It’s a very abstracted world where they are jumping from universe to universe and locale to locale from scene to scene.”
Scenic designer Alyssa Sutherland says, “You’re seeing these characters go through the same situations and make different decisions – or the same decision over and over. So, we wanted there to be this visual illusion to all of the choices one can make.”
Sutherland developed the set using a repetitive structure that could be manipulated into different shapes. The abstract sculptures that make up the set ultimately were inspired by the idea of wormholes.
“Theoretically, a wormhole is like a shortcut in space and time to another place in space and time,” she says. “So I was drawing on that imagery.”
Roop’s expansive ideas about the set are resulting in augmentation of the Firehouse’s seating capacity. “We’re removing the curtains on the stage right side of the stage, treating the stage right corner as downstage, and adding seating in the lobby,” she says.
“I’m really excited about it. Hopefully, we’re really going to ignite people’s imaginations.”
Yes, And! Theatrical Company’s “Constellations” will run at Firehouse Theatre, 1609 West Broad St. from Jan. 24 to Feb. 8. Previews are Jan. 22 and 23. Tickets are available at https://www.yesandrva.org/.
