By CAROLYN BROWN
Staff Writer
Director Matteo Pangallo, center, looks on as Lindsey Campbell and Jim Merlin rehearse Valley Players’ production of “Constellations” at Munson Memorial Library in Amherst. STAFF PHOTO/Carolyn Brown
Valley Players, a local volunteer theater group formed earlier this year, will perform their first full production in Amherst this weekend and next.
The show, “Constellations,” by playwright Nick Payne, will be at Munson Memorial Library in Amherst from Friday, Oct. 11, to Sunday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and at 2 p.m. on Sundays.
The 75-minute play is about two people — a beekeeper, Roland, and a theoretical physicist, Marianne — who meet at a barbecue. Then, through a unique narrative structure, the play branches out into multiverses.
Some scenes have nearly identical dialogue to the preceding scene, though the characters sometimes change their words, blocking, or inflections — and, in doing so, change the impact of the dialogue in surprising ways.
“The range of emotions goes from laughter to anger to sadness,” said Jim Merlin, one of the actors who plays Roland. “It’s been a real challenge, as an actor, to, one scene, make people laugh, the next scene, potentially make people cry, all in an hour and 15 minutes.”
Most productions of “Constellations” use only two actors, but this one uses eight — four for Roland and four for Marianne. Instead of having pairs of actors assigned to specific universes, this production has each Marianne do a collection of scenes with each Roland and vice versa. Likewise, it’s the actor changes — rather than a change in lighting or scenery — that indicate a change in universes.
Director Matteo Pangallo looks on as Sam Fox and Jim Merlin rehearse Valley Players’ production of “Constellations” at Munson Memorial Library in Amherst. STAFF PHOTO/Carolyn Brown
“There is no one core timeline, and just because two actors happen to be together in one scene doesn’t mean the next time they’re in a scene together, it’s the same timeline,” director Matteo Pangallo explained. “It’s about pursuing a variety of different stories within this larger narrative.”
Pangallo said that using an ensemble of actors rather than just two not only further suggests the idea of multiverses, but it also gives more actors the opportunity to be involved with the company’s first full production. It’s fitting, too, because all of the actors in the show are local and most are from Hampshire or Franklin County: the cast includes Lindsey Campbell (Belchertown), Cici Drzik and Sam Fox (Greenfield), Cory Flood (Orange), Benjamin Hersey (Easthampton), Jim Merlin (South Deerfield), Maddie Evans (Holden) and Terrance J. Peters (Windsor, Connecticut).
The crew and production team are local as well: Pangallo, the director, as well as lighting designer Kate Cell and costume designer Cheryl Hayden are all from Shutesbury. Assistant director/stage manager Anna Morrissey is from Northampton and set advisor Miles Herter lives in Amherst.
This production also localizes the script, which was written by a British playwright, to Massachusetts: among other changes, Marianne works at the University of Massachusetts, she makes fun of Roland for living in Cambridge, and she has an affair with a man in Northampton.
Maddie Evans plays one of the Mariannes. She said that even within this production’s notion that each scene is an entirely different timeline – which, according to Pangallo, means that there are 100 in all – there is a certain continuity throughout: “They fall in love and something tears them apart, and, in most cases, they find each other again – that ‘right person, wrong time’ thing.” The takeaway for audiences, then, is: “There’s no way to know what future or what timeline your relationship is going to follow, but regardless, it will be yours.”
Lindsey Campbell and Terrance J. Peters rehearse Valley Players’ production of “Constellations” at Munson Memorial Library in Amherst. STAFF PHOTO/Carolyn Brown
“There’s a lot of choices you can make,” she added. “You never know which choice is going to be right, but it’s taking you where you are meant to go. Every scene in this show shows you one slight difference can change where you’re going, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s a terrible thing.”
Merlin echoed this sentiment and said that audiences will take away the idea that “one action, one word, one sentence can change the course of a relationship.”
“It’s a play that encourages [us] to be thoughtful and deliberate about our own relationships, to think carefully about all of the things that both choice and chance throw our way and recognize that the words we choose, the pauses between words — those things really do matter,” Pangallo said. “Every moment is important, because it could lead to so many different outcomes.”
Tickets are pay-what-you-can, though director Matteo Pangallo strongly encourages guests to make reservations through a link on the Players’ website, valleyplayers.org. Fifty percent of the ticket revenue will go to the local nonprofit Cancer Connection (the impact of a cancer diagnosis is a key part of the show).
Carolyn Brown can be reached at cbrown@gazettenet.com.
