Theater Review: ‘The Effect’ invites viewers to explore the nature of the mind
Published: 01-25-2025 5:01 PM |
In 1993, Trinidadian-German recording artist Haddaway memorably posed the timeless question: “What is love? (Baby don’t hurt me).”
Connie and Tristan, two clinical trial volunteers for an antidepressant who have fallen in love, are wondering the same thing.
Their budding relationship is at the heart of Lucy Prebble’s play “The Effect,” now in a thought-provoking production at Shaker Bridge Theatre in White River Junction.
At the outset of the play, directed by Shaker Bridge’s founder, Bill Coons, the two seem ill-matched. The floppy-haired Tristan, presumably named after the knight who consumes a love potion in the chivalric tale “Tristan and Iseult,” is flighty and bombastic. He flirts with psychiatrist Dr. Lorna James and tosses back the first antidepressant like it’s a Tic Tac.
Connie, meanwhile, is a diligent psychology and social sciences student. She carefully answers Dr. James’ questions, eager to be a model patient.
Their interactions transpire inside a giant circle, designed by Craig Mowery. During these scenes, Dr. James and her colleague, Dr. Toby Sealey, sit on office chairs on opposite sides of the ring, a nod to the play’s staging in the 2023 revival at London’s National Theatre. (“The Effect” originally premiered in 2012.) Sometimes it’s clear that they’re observing Tristan and Connie, other times it’s harder to tell, but the eerie atmosphere of surveillance never lets up.
The circle calls to mind a sumo ring. Indeed, at first the protagonists verbally spar with each other, with Tristan, played by Haulston Mann, hurling bits of quippy banter at Connie (Sophia Grasso) that she blocks with a pragmatic retort and an eye roll.
But as the trial progresses and their doses increase, the protagonists become steadily infatuated with each other, much to the alarm of their supervisors.
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Are their feelings genuine or an effect of the drug? Or instead, a subconscious rebellion against Connie’s professor-boyfriend and the mandate prohibiting physical intimacy during the trial?
At times, Tristan’s flirty jabs are so unrelenting, I wondered if Connie caught feelings out of pure exhaustion.
The patients’ efforts to decipher their feelings somersault into a broader debate about the nature of love. Does it have origins in the soul, or it is no more than a set of chemical reactions in the brain, and, as Tristan wonders, does it matter?
It’s an engrossing debate that only intensifies as new information about the trial is revealed in a set of shock twists that elicited several gasps from the audience at Thursday night’s performance. The show has the expert timing of an Agatha Christie story, a credit to Prebble’s writing and Coons’ direction.
Mann and Grasso display impressive mastery of their characters, especially in their physical portrayals. At the beginning, Tristan’s movements are nonchalant but constant, like he’s feigning confidence. He often inches into Connie’s space throughout a scene, while she remains rigid and small.
As their relationship progresses alongside the trial, their physicality shifts as well. For a while, their movements are softer, more intimate, until developments in the trial cause them to physically and emotionally unravel.
The playbill reveals that the actors are friends in real life, which helps explain the ease of their banter onstage.
The clinicians’ relationship proves to be as fraught as that of their patients, a discovery that piles more layers of intrigue onto the story.
We learn that Dr. James, played by Susan Haefner, an Upper Valley mainstay, suffers from bouts of depression she refuses to treat with medication, despite the pleas of Dr. Sealey (Tim Rush). The two engage in their own ongoing debate about the ethics of the trial and of the pharmaceutical industry at large.
It’s these debates that give the play its depth, as each character tries to catch a glimpse of their mind out of the corner of their eye so that they might finally understand it.
In one of the play’s more poignant scenes, Dr. James sits alone on stage holding a model of a brain at arm’s length like it’s the skull, Yorick, in “Hamlet.” She spars with it, voicing the insults it bombards her with, then feebly trying to argue back. Eventually, she breaks down in tears.
It’s a difficult scene to watch, one that underscores the nature of the mind as something slippery and impossible to pin down. Inviting the audience to reckon with this, without the offer of a panacea, is perhaps the play’s greatest strength.
Shaker Bridge Theatre’s production of “The Effect” runs through Feb. 9. For tickets ($22-$47) go to shakerbridgetheatre.org or call 802-281-6848.
Marion Umpleby can be reached at mumpleby@vnews.com or 603-727-3306.