The Effect is a superb dissection of the heart as the energy source driving all human endeavour, cleverly delivered under the artifice of a laboratory.
Multi award-winning writer Lucy Prebble (Succession, I Hate Suzie) original play from 2012 has been given some tweaking, making it strikingly prescient considering the viral madness contagion of the last four years.
The setting is the confines of a sterile detention building, where a controlled experiment of a new anti-depressant drug is undergoing necessary clinical trials, before being released into the public domain. At least that’s what used to happen, until recently.
The stage setting (production designer Dan Williams) emphasises this sterile atmosphere. It could be a hospital or a prison.
A raised large screen crosses the entire expanse of the stage, the title emblazoned in harsh bright lights, imprinting your brain. Otherwise, it has two desks with computers resembling an office. There is plenty of space requiring the small cast of four to fill.
There is a clever expository piece from the leading research psychiatrist Toby Sealey (Jarod Rawiri). His father was a heart surgeon who disdained his son’s Cinderella profession.
Toby talks directly to the audience as if we are at a medical seminar. He picks up a brain out of a bucket he has brought on stage. Well, now we can correct the chemical imbalances of undesirable behaviour.
It is a misleading trope which became a mantra in the profession. We can control the physical, and now also the psychological.
Two of their testing volunteers meet in this artificially contrived atmosphere. Connie (Zoe Robins) a psychology student, and Tristan (Jayden Daniels) a loose spirit who has participated in several trials for financial reward.
Psychiatrist Dr Lorna James (Sara Wiseman) introduces them with her interview. She has a cool detached manner with an underlying pithy humour. Round one in verbal sparring goes to her.
Connie is a little combative and insecure as a university student. Tristan is cocky and quite flirtatious.
The two subjects bond early by sharing their body fluids. Warm urine samples, that is. All mimed of course.
The prospective pair play out their courtship dance in this expanded Room 101, clinically cold and with an uneasy air of menace lurking. There are hints of Winston and Julia from Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Tristan is bold and openly priapic. Connie is conflicted and reserved with an academic demeanour. How much of her emotional state is due to chemicals? She needs to stay in control. We discover more of her back-story than Tristan, who plays the role of giving sway to impulse and desire.
The observers are not as impartial as first portrayed. They appear collegial in manner but slowly the dynamics of a previous relationship are put in place, block by block.
A Fatal Attraction encounter, where one partner carried a burden of emotional turmoil and the other buried the residual of guilt.
The tension is skilfully wound up in intensity as the trial progresses.
The medications are increased. Both trial subjects experience physical and emotional reactions. They clash, argue, and eventually come together in heated passion.
The Controllers rekindle simmering flames, but the consequences take a frightening tone.
The pacing and development of the drama is in the hands of a skilled director, Benjamin Kilby-Hensen, who also handled last seasons magnificent performance of King Lear.
Deeper underlying themes surface, like shafts of enlightenment but without preaching polemics.
Some of us who have worked inside the health industry (correctly, ill-heath) know of the gaming that has gone on for many years with big pharmaceutical companies and drug trials. Anti-depressants, being the most prescribed medications in the world, have been especially exposed, and this is over thirty years ago.
There is no such thing as side-effects, they are all effects! Says Doctor James. She has been depressed herself and has refused to take medication.
This of course is a basic human right enshrined in the Nuremberg Code which mysteriously vanished in 2021.
The script digs a little deeper too, to reveal the motivation of the medical experts who get seduced and compromised by the fame and wealth on offer.
It is a commentary on the technical and mechanistic view of life developing with the Enlightenment. Modern medicine in Hippocrates time began with a holistic view of life which accounted for the Arts and spirituality.
A rift occurred and the pursuit of the purely scientific, as a way to cleanse us of all the undesirable elements, took hold.
Is this Love or Confusion? Connie keeps pondering as her human emotions bubble over. She may be listening to Hendrix on her ear buds.
Dangerous elements appear, which go unchecked as the doctors lose their presumed impartiality.
The attention to detail regarding the medical aspect is impeccable save for one detail. It may have been deliberately placed there to catch doctors. See if you can spot it.
There could be a salvation for one of these couples. There could be an Orwellian ending for another.
The Effect is a superb love story which is played out in the confines of grim and hostile environment. Love can be an illness or madness, but it is an essential part of the human condition.
Rev. Orange Peel
“The Effect” at ASB Waterfront Theatre
Performances until 11 May 2024
Tickets available from The Auckland Theatre Company
