Theatre review: The Effect

Easily one of the best plays of the 2010s, Lucy Prebble's The Effect returns to the National Theatre where it premiered, but it swaps the studio theatre for the Lyttelton, and the theatrical richness and tricksiness of Rupert Goold for Jamie Lloyd's simultaneously stripped-back yet brash style. Lloyd brings a design coup, as Soutra Gilmour reconfigures the Stalls and stage to make a traverse, putting the quartet of characters under the kind of intense clinical scrutiny their minds and bodies are subject to in the story. In a large medical complex - the ruins of an old mental asylum are still on the grounds - a group of volunteers take part in a medical trial. Connie (Taylor Russell) and Tristan (Paapa Essiedu) flirt with each other from the get-go, but as their time isolated from the outside world goes on, they seem to be falling violently in love with each other for real.

But the clinical trial is for a new antidepressant that increases dopamine levels - the same effect as the sensation of falling in love. As Tristan and Connie's feelings get stronger, so does their anxiety over whether this intense experience is even real.

I was in the Lyttelton bar at 7pm, so I know that's the exact time that Michael "Mikey J" Asante's music started pumping into the front-of-house areas in preparation for the audience to take their place. If the original production’s soundtrack was defined by one very memorable, wistful song, Lloyd's goes on to be dominated by exhilarating, yet ominous beats that variously underscore the action and loudly come to the forefront. I heard some audience members on the way out grumble about it - personally while I wouldn't call it subtle, in the last decade I've heard many much more ham-fisted attempts to emulate A View From the Bridge's ambient sound, so I get what it was trying to do: Make this perhaps a less romantic version of the story, but one that focuses on the way an intense love affair has an edge of danger to it.

Prebble has made some edits to the text - the original script gave the characters similar backgrounds to their original actors so those have been tweaked to match the new cast, and there's some references to the particular challenges of working as a black woman in medicine. Presumably there's also been some major cuts to the text as, now playing without an interval, the production is an hour shorter than the premiere - that can't all have been Ingrid Michaelson. This script is presumably closer to Prebble's radio version from 2018.

One upside of this is that although Tristan and Connie’s story is still the headline act, here the two parallel couples feel a bit better balanced. And while everyone in the cast nails it, this very much feels like Michele Austin’s show as Lorna, the psychiatrist running the trial on a day-to-day basis. Much as the right production of Equus will reveal that play as being more about the psychological issues of the doctor than the patient, so this production and this performance makes the play about the baggage Lorna carries with her to the trial: Her own serious problems with depression, the reasons she’s refused to have it treated, and whether the chaos that ensues under her watch is, on some level, deliberate. Through all this Austin (one of those actors who’s been doing solid work for years, who it’s really satisfying to now see as the star turn on a major stage,) brings a tremendous amount of warmth to a clinical production.

The character we learn the least about is the one ultimately behind the trial, Toby, the clinical psychiatrist who now works for the pharmaceutical company, and who had an affair with Lorna some years previously, around the time of her major breakdown. Kobna Holdbrook-Smith plays him so silky-voiced it’s easy to believe that he was the lothario of the medical conference circuit, though by the same token hard to think anyone would trust him for a second. In fact the voice Holdbrook-Smith gives him is such a surreal mix of Barry White and Charles III that there were people around me who couldn’t help laughing every time he spoke.

If the shorter, intense production clarifies a lot about the play – it really highlights how many issues Prebble deals with, from medical ethics to what a long life is worth, not to mention, of course, if it matters where the first spark of love came from if it’s all a chemical reaction anyway. Some elements do feel like they get short shrift though – one particular speech of Lorna’s about how long life means almost everyone’s death will be protracted and painful felt like it came out of nowhere. And while the central romance certainly does engage the emotions, it’s more as a thriller than as a tragic love story. I have to say despite enjoying the performances I was surprised not to feel remotely close to tears by the end – you could pin it on me knowing how the story would end but there definitely seemed to be an enthusiastic but phlegmatic response from the rest of the audience filing out of the theatre. Lloyd has got us involved in the mystery and excitement of Connie and Tristan’s love story, but not given us time to fall in love with them ourselves.

Still, this very different kind of reaction just proves the flexibility of Prebble’s story. This is the second time in a couple of months that I’ve seen a play revived that I’d previously seen with the cast and creatives it had been specifically written for and tailored to. Not that there was really any doubt that The Effect was a strong enough work to stand without them, and also get reinterpreted while still maintaining a lot of its power, but Lloyd’s different take confirms it as a play that’s likely to get revisited and reinvented for years to come.

The Effect by Lucy Prebble is booking until the 7th of October at the National Theatre’s Lyttelton.

Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.