By Kat Bryant
The Daily World
It’s your last weekend to see Aberdeen’s Driftwood Players in a fall season opening production streamed live on Zoom.
The production has been given every Friday and Saturday since Sept. 25 and closes Saturday.
“It’s a fully staged play in the Driftwood Theater, but the audience will be at home,” said director Brad Duffy. “And the cool thing is, anybody in the world can see our show if they want to buy a ticket.”
“Constellations,” a one-act drama for teens and adults, will showcase two veteran local actors: Julayne Fleury as Marianne, a Cambridge cosmologist; and Casey Bronson as Roland, a beekeeper.
“It’s two actors, two costumes, two props — no set,” said Duffy.
But it’s not as simple as it sounds.
“This play operates in three universes,” he said. “You see their relationship play out in each of those universes; and even in addition to that, you see it play out in multiple ways within those universes. So there are unlimited possibilities to the way this relationship goes.”
Duffy uses lighting to differentiate those “universes” for the audience.
“It’s basically the string theory version of boy meets girl,” said Fleury. “So boy meets girl, boy meets girl again, and again, and boy actually meets girl to infinity and… who knows?”
For the actors, the greatest challenge may be the lack of audience feedback.
“It’s very hard to do a show with no interaction, energy or read of the audience,” said Bronson. “But we are definitely going to do our best to make it feel like any other show.”
Fleury isn’t worried about it. “It’ll probably just feel like a dress rehearsal,” she said. “By dress rehearsals, none of the crew thinks you’re funny anymore. They’ve already heard the jokes like a thousand times, so it’s actually always more of a shock when you get a live audience in there and they laugh, and you’re like — oh yeah! That was funny! I forgot.”
The director and both actors are excited about the production. Bronson says it’s “completely captivating,” and Duffy calls it “a marvelous piece of theater.”
“This is most challenging role I have ever attempted to act. Ever,” said Fleury. “Nick Payne’s parallel universe-inspired formatting of the script makes the story unique — but his realistically imperfect and awkwardly endearing characters make it matter.”
This online broadcast came about because of pandemic restrictions, of course, but Duffy said it could lead to a long-term change for Driftwood.
“The board can see if we’re going to be doing things, this is the way it’s going to be for at least a while,” he said. “And potentially, once we can have audiences back, it could be possible for us to continue to have a live audience in the theater — but to screen as well for those who would prefer to be at home, or who are housebound, and would like to see something.”
The live performances of “Constellations” will begin at 7:30 p.m. every Friday and Saturday from Sept. 25 through Oct. 10. Because the “tickets” actually are links to a specific Zoom session, they are available only through Driftwood’s website: aberdeendriftwood.com.
Tickets are $15 per household and are good only for the chosen performance. To enter the Zoom session and watch the play, ticketholders may click on the link provided in their email confirmation up to 15 minutes before showtime.
Photo by Bri Bonnell “Constellations” is a one-act drama for teens and adults featuring Julayne Fleury as Marianne, a Cambridge cosmologist, and Casey Bronson as Roland, a beekeeper.
