Nick Payne’s Constellations follows the encounters of Marianne, a cosmologist, and Roland, a beekeeper, across multiple universes. The play exploded onto the theatre scene in 2012, swiftly transferring to the West End and Broadway. It toured the UK last year and sold out at the Cambridge Arts Theatre. Marthe de Ferrer says that directing the show was a no-brainer: “I’d been obsessed with it for a year and a half, but the rights have only just become available. As a director there’s so much freedom and every production that’s been so far has been very different.”

I met with Marthe and the rest of the cast in the ADC bar. At first glance the play appears to be a typical girl-meets-boy love story, but with a quirky twist. The same characters come together in the same situations again and again, but the outcomes of each scene change radically, depending on the smallest of circumstances. Ella Duffy, who plays Marianne, comments: “It’s a really interesting challenge to have to bring out very different ideas with exactly the same lines. It’s really fun to play with. It’s fascinating to think that a person can say one thing, one sentence, and that can change your entire life. If Roland responds in an angry way or a sad way to what Marianne says then that changes the entire play.” It’s a very relatable, if unsettling, theme. We’ve all wondered what might have happened if we’d met someone in slightly different circumstances, or if we’d left out that (hilarious) but unflattering anecdote on a first date. Ed Limb, who plays Roland, says that the play is naturalistic as it exposes the multi-faceted aspects in all of us. “Who you sympathise with changes in each scene. In some of the scenes he’s not very likeable, and she’s not very likeable. Sometimes in a certain situation under a lot of pressure, they say very unpleasant things and do very unpleasant things. No one in real life is linear.”

Ed dissects the scene he’s just been rehearsing, in which Roland reacts to a devastating revelation. “In some scenes he reacts with this desperation, fear. With some of them it’s real anger. I like the idea that all of those impulses are there in every scene, it’s just that in some of them they come to the fore.”

Marthe agrees that it is this uncertainty which shapes the play: “The scenes are really cleverly put together. In one scene Roland can be so sympathetic and your heart goes out to him, and then he turns around and does something absolutely awful. It’s the way they’re placed together. And my view of individual scenes has changed. I’ll see it on the page and think ‘Oh, that scene’s so tragic’ and then you see it on its feet, and it’s a lot funnier than you thought. The tone of each scene completely shifts.”

“I think the audience will enjoy some of the comic elements of the more serious scenes,” Ella adds. “Some of the arguments that we have, and the way we deliver the lines, will make the audience laugh unexpectedly.”

Clara van Wel, the assistant director, chimes in. “I think that’s what’s great about this – because there’s just two people on stage, it could be very intense, but because it’s realistic it’s got a humour that makes you more invested in the characters because they’re very endearing.” Clara also draws attention to the role of music in the production. Toby Marlow is composing an original score for the show that he’ll perform on-stage on a grand piano. “Music is so important during the play,” Clara states. “It lifts everything.”

I ask if there’s anything which they personally will take from the play. Ed immediately says: “It’s the idea of being sympathetic and sensitive, because people can have gone through so many experiences to shape who they are. Someone could be a genuinely good person, but just had a bad day at the office or something. That comes through in the way that you see different sides of the same people. And you tend to think of something as being destined, but it gives you this sense that actually we have a lot of agency, we shape our different relationships.”

Clara interrupts with a smile. “There is this whole idea of free will, and instead of love at first sight, thinking that it’s meant to be, it shows how frail that connection can be. But it is romantic at the end of the day. We keep following the options where they are together.”

Constellations is showing at 11pm, Wednesday 27th - Saturday 30th April 2016, at the ADC.