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錨點 1

Constellations

by Nick Payne

Richard Burton Company,at RWCMD, The Caird Studio.

Director – Francesca Goodridge
Set Design – Christine (Yongqian) Chen 
Costume Design – Olivia Lewis
Lighting Design – Cameron Gallacher
Sound Designer – Enzo Lipley
Photography – Kirsten McTernan

This classic modern theatre production uses the multiverse theory as its narrative framework and presents the epic love story of physicist Marianne and beekeeper Roland across time and space through the interweaving of four parallel universes. The play adopts a fragmented cyclical structure, where the repetition of the same scene often leads to very different life trajectories, subtly echoing Marianne's academic beliefs in quantum mechanics and string theory. The story begins with a first encounter at a barbecue party, where two souls fall in love in a fortuitous alignment of the universe. When a crisis of trust triggered by infidelity leads to separation, fate brings the two back together in a ballroom dancing class and eventually into marriage. But then comes a cruel twist - Marianne develops a tumour in her frontal lobe and gradually loses her speech and mobility. Faced with the remaining time limit of her life, Marianne, with Roland's support, travelled abroad to seek assisted suicide. The play ends with a flashback to recreate the tender moments of the dance classroom, solidifying the eternal love at the crossroads of parallel time and space. The work explores the multiple possibilities of love, fate and the nature of existence through the fusion of scientific philosophy and human warmth.

Set Designing Process

Initial References 

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Constellations is a story about the universe, life and love.Caird studio is a small space which is suitable for a more immersive stage design, so I used Led lights to create a ‘Life Tree’ to express the love between Marianne and Roland across time and space in different universes.

​The set of Constellations is Inspired by Avatar's The Tree of Voices, on Tree I also hang on some lanterns to shows Marianne’s inner world and progression of her illness . As the story progresses the tree's lights change colour to reveal the story of Marianne and Roland in different universes. At the end, the tree lights will go out and the UV lights will slowly come on to reveal the stars hidden in the space, making the final scene set in the infinite vastness of the universe, bringing Marianne and Roland back to the time of their reunion at the ball, and making their love set in the eternal universe.

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