I’m already a fan of Ruth Wilson (if you haven’t watched yet, you need to catch up on The Affair!), so I was super excited to have the chance to see her perform opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in Constellations, now on Broadway. A bonus? The show is just 70 minutes long. Don’t get me wrong: I love theater and appreciate a show with an intermission, but when you go into a play cut to that length, there’s an added element of time (and in this particular show, physics) that both the performers—and the audience members—have to pay attention to. The lights go up and the story has to hook you, fast. Distractions (like coughing seatmates) have to be ignored, all in an effort to keep up with the pacing and attentively follow along.
Here, the stars (Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson) make this easy to do. Their performances are captivating and raw, and as their relationship plays out on stage, the only distraction that crops up seems to be how you apply the plotline to your own life. For example, what if you could relive the events in your life that led you to this point? And imagine them with multiple outcomes, all of which alter the ending? The result is a poignant and breathtaking story of a couple rewriting time scene by scene.
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