Friday, February 26, 2016

Review of Red Turnips' CONSTELLATIONS: Romance and Relativity

February 27, 2016



The Red Turnips new show is being staged in a new theater venue, the Power Mac Center Spotlight Theater, which is located on the second floor of Circuit Lane in Circuit Makati. The venue is elongated with the audience seated on two parallel rows along the horizontal axis of the room with the stage in the middle. There was one main hexagonal raised stage in the middle of the room, with several smaller "stages" scattered on either side. There were nylon cords creating a web around the area occupied by the stages. The whole area is bathed in blue light.

I always look forward to new productions by Red Turnip because the plays they choose to stage are very challenging --  both for the actors to perform and for the audience to take in and digest. This new show "Constellations" definitely fits that mold. This play had only two actors and the words the exchange in their conversations to hold your attention for 80 full minutes straight, hardly anything else. And boy, how they nailed this. My attention was not only held, it was riveted.

The synopsis is very simple, deceptively so. Marianne is an astrophysicist. Roland is a beekeeper. They meet at a party. They fall in love and live together. They deal with various problems life throws at them, from affairs to mortality. This was told in little episodes, not in chronological order. It will be up to you to figure out what their real personalities are. It will be up to you piece the whole story together. 

From the very first scene, you will instantly see how this play was going to be different from anything. The same lines were repeated over and over. However, there would be different responses to the same question. There would be different emotions and voice inflections to accompany the same words.  These differences in delivery or words used, small or insignificant as they would seem, lead to different outcomes. In this play, we actually get to see the various "what-if" scenarios and what happens afterwards. 

The actors for this play practically had to be schizophrenic, quickly shifting from one emotion to another at the ring of a bell. Cris Villonco set the pace for the play with her very fluid shifts from flighty millennial to smart scientist to drama queen. There was no doubt that she could pull this role off, and she certainly did. I have only seen JC Santos in Filipino productions before, so his performance here in English was a remarkable revelation. He was certainly able to keep up with Villonco's frenetic pace and make his own memorable moments. 

Relativity and romance may seem to be an unlikely pairing for a play, but young British playwright Nick Payne shows us that it can be done with astonishing effect. This play debuted in London in 2012 (with Sally Hawkins and Rafe Spall) and brought to Broadway in 2015 (with Ruth Wilson and Jake Gyllenhaal in his Broadway debut), both productions receiving critical acclaim for the actors and the writer. 

For this local version, director Rem Zamora fully harnessed the best of his two actors and presented the material in the most hypnotic fashion. The lights (John Batalla), set (Ed Lacson, Jr.) and sound (Teresa Barrozo) were unobtrusive as they should be for a play like this. Everything had to be toned down in order to fully showcase the actors and their words they say and how they say them. All the technical aspects worked together successfully for this full enhancing effect to create the "multiverse" where this play existed.


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Red Turnip Theater's CONSTELLATIONS opened last February 12, 2016, and will run on weekends until March 6 at the Power Mac Center Spotlight Theater in Circuit Makati located at Level 2, Circuit Lane, A.P. Reyes Ave., Makati City. Tickets are available through TicketWorld (all outlets, call 891-9999 or www.ticketworld.com.ph) or Red Turnip Theater at redturniptheater@gmail.com. 


19 comments:

  1. What a unique concept! I love plays like this, especially ones that explore all sides of human emotion and personality. Very cool.

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  2. Only two actors for this play? I'm intrigued on how they deliver their character, especially Cris Villongco. She's a good theater actress/singer.

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  3. I'm glued to this post! A play that could reveal a severe brain disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally is pretty idea. Good job, Fred!!

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  4. Cris Villongco has earned her rep already as a versatile theater actress if you ask me. I also want to add that I am amazed with what Ayala is doing with Circuit Makati - I am impressed that they have a venue for plays.

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  5. I like the concept of this play.It seems a great one....Nice review Fred...keep it up.

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  6. Cris Villonco is really a good actress and a professional one. I have worked closely with her as she's a brand ambassador of a non-profit organization where I used to work. She always memorizes her lines, comes on time, and deals with people professionally and genuinely. How I wish I can watch this one.

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  7. Oh no, it's a play review again. This means there no way for me to catch it! I thought the play is pretty interesting and different! :(

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  8. I've never heard of this play before but sure sounds catchy. If I was in the area, I would love to have watched it. Thank you for sharing. Great review!

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  9. That sounds like a challenging role, from the actors' perspectives. Imagine having to switch to different emotions all the time. How demanding. And yet, that's the beauty of it all. It makes the play more engaging and interesting for the audience.

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  10. We need more conceptual plays like this! This is such an interesting play! :D

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  11. Thanks for sharing. Looks like another good play to watch. Do you act also?

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  12. It would be interesting how an astrophysicist and a beekeeper would mesh in a play. It looks nice to follow their adventure and how they get paste the roadblocks.

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  13. When a play or movie is not in chronological order and shuttles back and forth it gets very interesting. This sounds interesting too...

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  14. Omg this is a kind of its own play, its my first time encounter schizophrenic actors. They must be real quick to shift their emotion. Thumbs up

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  15. Love love love Cris Villonco. Ever since I watched her at Bituing Walang Ningning, I started to appreciate how great an actress she is. This seems like a great show to see. ^^

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  16. Is this an original play? There is a movie with a very similar concept and plot, except none of the characters are astrophysicist. It's called Comet. I'm a big fan of back and forth sequencing, kind of like Memento and 500 Days of Summer.

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  17. How I wished they had plays likes these back in my country,it was my dream to design and dress for theather plays or movies. From your review I can tell this is definitely a well casted show that one can be moved by the performance alone.

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  18. I have never seen any 80-minutes stage play with just two actors. It must have been very good for it to keep you glued to it. I will love to watch of one such!

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  19. I wish I had the opportunity to watchh plays like this. Thanks for sharing this with us!

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