An absorbing exploration of advanced physics and that quantum business most of us treat with caution, if not outright suspicion, this two-hander – which opened at The Royal Court a scant three years ago – is equally a thoroughly homely romance. Melanie Camp’s direction achieves a nice balance, with her creative team and cast confidently aligned with both aspects of the play. 

Marianne and Roland meet on the fringe of a rained-out barbecue. She works at a university in the field of quantum cosmology, thus allowing a conversational and quirky venture into quantum theory, involving the simultaneous existence of different outcomes in our lives. He, on the other hand, is at home with the meticulous and predetermined world of bees, where function is predictable and unchanging. Their ‘collision’ is both funny and at times, poignant.

Their underlying story runs a relatively familiar line of a relationship which builds, is broken and rebuilt, culminating in Marianne’s facing a biopsy. Within the frame many variations evolve as scenes are redeveloped again and again, the result of this response or that, so that a whole web of possibilities is woven. Each fresh start is cued by a sharp fracturing sound.

The challenge of creating consistent roles throughout the process must have been daunting, but both actors are compellingly truthful at all times, sometimes having to assume a complete contradiction of the attitude played only moments before. As Marianne, Renee Lyons is warmly spontaneous, finding the vulnerability within her role as the intelligent self-confident single. 

Wesley Dowdell is similarly in fine touch as the bee keeper, Roland, fleshing out the sometimes sparse and often repeated dialogue with finely tuned physicality. As the ‘simple’ man, trying to adapt and communicate in impromptu situations, he is both funny and moving.

Support from the design team is more than ever significant, as two actors play out the variations on an otherwise empty stage. Mark McEntyre’s set, with lighting from Giles Tanner as well as sound and original music from Hamish Oliver, establishes the cosmic reference of the play through a polished black disc of a stage, backed by the darkness and scattered stars of space, with choral music suggestive of grandeur. Aimee Reed has the couple in casual outfits subtly underscoring the background of their characters. 

Understanding of quantum theory itself, as a result of seeing this play, presumably also varies with the multiple universes we are ourselves moving within. What can be claimed with certainty in this one, is that a cleverly written demonstration is expressed in engagingly playful and human terms, as an invitation to speculate on our comfortable linear notion of reality. 

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