The Fault in Our Stars: A Review of Constellations at Theatre Above the Law

Ross Compton and Melanie McNulty in Theatre Above the Law’s “Constellations”/Photo: Tyler Core

There’s something so ordinary yet so transfixing about watching Melanie McNulty and Ross Compton perform Nick Payne’s “Constellations,” a production from Theatre Above the Law available to stream as a filmed piece of theater. They are enacting what so many artists across Chicago and the world have been unable to do for almost a year now: perform a play onstage, together, unmasked, up close. The sense of amazement at banality is a strange dichotomy.It had to have been cathartic for McNulty, Compton and, presumably director Tony Lawry, for whom this project had been in the works for what seems like millennia: a pre-pandemic production forever stalled until enough was enough—virus be damned!—and, following CDC guidelines and taking test upon test upon test, TATL created the show before us, filmed over a single performance and streaming online for your enjoyment.

I wish I could talk about “Constellations,” a hilarious and tragic love story about beekeeper Roland (Compton) and Marianne (McNulty), a cosmologist specializing in quantum mechanics, told through a flurry of scenes hopping from universe to universe, imagining the numerous iterations of how their relationship succeeds and fails, with all the humor and heart the premise allows. But this “Constellations” requires a larger conversation about the means by which we are viewing the production—which, in my experience at least, hindered any emotional engagement with the piece at all.

Theatre Above the Law’s production is a filmed capture of a live performance, with no cuts and no edits, as if we were sitting at the back of their storefront space watching the show. Aside from a post-show credits sequence and some extra support for audio clarity, the footage resembles something more archival than built for at-home entertainment. The camera goes out of focus more times than is comfortable, and the lighting choices and blocking designed for the stage production fall flat on film. It may seem strange to focus more on technical aspects than content, but when discussing a ticketed production marketed for public consumption, there’s value in noting the barriers to becoming immersed in the story. The production seems more focused on preservation than presentation.

The show itself leaves a lot to ponder on, too. Oftentimes, the theatrical language is unclear, with lighting and staging choices to demarcate scene jumps lacking in both specificity and urgency; it feels like we’re walking through mud to get from scene to scene. This lack of specificity lingers throughout, leaving the actors in a sandbox with no real tools to grasp—which is a shame, because both Compton and McNulty exude heaps of charm and earnestness throughout the seventy-minute performance, even if they’ve been given no clear means of how and where to aim the trajectory of these characters. McNulty especially navigates the tragedy of Marianne’s arc in the latter half of the play with all the seriousness and groundedness it deserves. Her performance gives us the most to hang onto as we trudge through the final scenes.

We’re all grappling with not only how to make theater during a global pandemic, but why. Who is the work for? Whose stories are we telling during this shared moment of trauma? Are we making art as a response to this moment? As a means of distraction or rest? For the team behind “Constellations,” the act of finally getting this story out into the world is surely a remarkable one. And there is a clear throughline for staging “Constellations”—a play about the possibility of universes existing outside our own—during this terrifying moment in history. But in our universe, in this production, that line is muddy and out of focus. If nothing else, Theatre Above the Law will always have this experience, captured on film: a document of that singular time where two actors were able to exist within an ordinary moment amidst a chaotic world.

Playing digitally with Theatre Above the Law, courtesy of ShowTix4U, theatreatl.org, (773)655-7197. $15. Through February 28.