IN ITS first show back for the 2023/2024 season, Reading’s Progress Theatre is exploring love in the modern age with Lucy Prebble’s The Effect.
Directed by Rebecca Douglas, the production focuses on the relationship between two participants in a clinical drug trial, who, along with the doctors running the trial, are forced to consider how modern medicine can affect the symptoms of the human condition.
Progress mainstay Katie Moreton returns as the excitable, free-spirited Tristan, and Stephanie Clarke makes her third stage appearance to portray the more straight-laced, down-to-earth Connie.
Both Moreton and Clarke shine in the roles, with their fizzing on-stage chemistry bringing a relatability to their wildly different yet still kindred spirits as characters.
Moreton’s portrayal of Tristan is excitingly ebullient, particularly in the play’s first half, where Tristan’s wild-eyed wonder is effervescent among the stuffier, more focused characters in the trial.
Clarke brings a bright and personable angle to Connie’s practicality, sprinkling the performance with subtle but distinct likeability and levity.
The realistic approach both actors take makes the romance between the characters immensely emotive and engaging, avoiding any overblown pomp without undermining the emotional core of the play.
Emma Sterry makes her considerable stage experience clear through her excellently-observed portrayal of Dr James, one of the clinicians running the trial.
While in the play’s first half Sterry’s performance is deliberately stand-offish and professional, the second half sees the erosion of the brash front the character holds up and the emergence of a vulnerable, tortured woman struggling with her mental health.
A particular highlight includes a monologue which sees Dr James sit at the front of the stage holding a replica brain and pointing out where in the brain parts of her personality sit, culminating in a desperate diatribe excellently acted by Sterry.
Keith Sullivan rounds out the cast as Toby, a fellow doctor on the trial, whose realism and subtlety makes the character’s complicated history with Dr James and attitude to her work all the more believable and impactful.
Overall, the whole cast handles Lucy Prebble’s whip-smart dialogue with ease, grounding the sometimes lofty prose to maximise the emotional impact of the play’s events, particularly as the relationship between Tristan and Connie grows increasingly turbulent in the second half.
Rebecca Douglas’ direction is judiciously understated, with the creative staging used minimally to allow the emotional heart of the play to shine through without being crowded out by production.
The sound and set work of the play is notable for its simplicity and effectiveness, evoking the cold light of a clinic and the murky corners of an abandoned asylum with ease.
Overall, The Effect shows what Progress Theatre does best: well-chosen and insightful source material is handled with consideration and tact.
Snappy production and direction allows the actors to imbue the story with all of the hope and heartache that the romance is due, resulting in as emotive and relevant a production as can be found.
The Effect is running at Progress Theatre, The Mount, from Monday-Saturday, September 4-9, with tickets available via: ticketsource.co.uk/progresstheatre
Full details of Progress Theatre’s upcoming season and access to tickets are available via: progresstheatre.co.uk/2023-24-season
