The Effect

The Effect takes depression, fast becoming a well-worn theme in contemporary theatre, and poses the question should we be popping those anti-depressants quite so easily. Frequently classified as a ‘chemical imbalance’ requiring medical intervention, this narrative asks why so many people in our society are medicated, when most display only mild depressive symptoms.

When Tristan and Connie volunteer for clinical tests for a new anti-depressant medication, their lives are plunged into uncertainty. Are the feelings they have for each other genuine, or manufactured artificially by the test drug. Somehow it matters. Why does it matter exactly?

Drawcards Sigrid Thornton (Dr Lorna James) and William McInnes (Dr Toby Sealey are joined by accomplished performers Nathaniel Dean and Zahra Newman in an unsettling play with good contemporary currency.

Set design is a series of aerially flown transparent screens serving to prescribe boundaries and enable the viewing of incidental action. The only scene sans screens is an abandoned lunatic asylum, perhaps implicitly positing drugs treatment as a greater impediment to freedom.

Direction is strong, although at time the dialogue was so intense I feared I was missing important detail. I needed more time to absorb the gravitas of what was been delivered.

The effect of this play on its audience was apparent. At interval a fellow patron gasped, They’re saying anti-depressants are no good, and as we filed out after the final curtain, another spoke openly to those around him, Just don’t take the drugs, don’t take the drugs.

Lucy Graham

Photographer: Jeff Busby