The Effect

Mark Leonard Winter and Angie Milliken in STC/QTC’s co-production of The Effect. Image by Lisa Tomasetti.

At one queasy moment the psychiatrist lifts from a bucket a blood-streaked brain; apparently it’s his father’s. He then reports his theory that all mental illness should be treated biologically – and pharmaceutically – just like any ailment to any other organ. 

And yet, still, we know so little about how this organ really works. 

Lucy Prebble’s latest play (after Enron), winner of a London Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play, takes on some big issues around medical science, mental illness, love and the commercial exploitation underpinning the (first) world’s addiction to antidepressants. But as theatre publicists love to pronounce, there are a lot more questions here than answers.

Loveable drifter Tristan (Mark Leonard Winter) signs up again for another drug trial where – over their first urine sample – he meets Connie (Anna McGahan), a sad ethereal girl used to keeping life at a distance. 

The two testers fall in love but, spot-lit like mice in the research lab, grapple earnestly about whether their emotions, and their brains, are prompted only by the happy pills. And what if one of them is on the placebo?

Angie Milliken beautifully plays Dr James, torn between maintaining the integrity of this commercial drug trial and counselling her young charges. Later, we perceive her own mental suffering, due in part to a former lover and now boss Toby (Eugene Gilfedder). It turns out that Dr James herself is on trial as well, with doctor bias also being tested. Toby’s career is built on advocating these antidepressants and working the star lecture circuit (along with that brain in the bucket).

Director Sarah Goodes delivers a slick pacy production set on Renee Mulder’s large elevated stage lit from below and above in relentless neon light, and surrounded by the blue plastic chairs of a waiting room. Overhead screens flicker with the testers’ personal files and their increasing dosages. Soundman Guy Webster turns up the tension with a quietly rumbling soundtrack occasionally relieved with musical exuberance.

This co-production with the Queensland Theatre Company brings some talented Brisbane actors and creatives to the STC stage. The ensemble acting and confident engaging use of the sparse antiseptic space is first class. 

With slow suspense and considerable humour, Prebble reveals the two parallel relationships, between the testers and the older doctors, artfully interweaved with talk of her hefty themes.

Tensions explode dramatically in the second half but the earlier balance – of mind and heart perhaps – gets lost. The play’s intellectual rigour and enquiry is finally sacrificed to exploring everyone’s tearful vulnerability. 

I had more interest in the issues than feelings for the characters, presented as they have been so coldly, and by the end wanted less psychobabble and more meat for the brain.