The Effect Review. Is love real?
4 / 10
A regular laboratory for clinical trials is itself an artificial setting, as is the relationship between researcher and subject, so perhaps there’s an analogy at work here that explains the brutally artificial staging. The stage pictures can certainly be arresting. But it’s a conceptual imposition, which paradoxically keeps intellectual engagement secondary, at best. Director Jamie Lloyd’s last gig in New York, last year’s production of “A Doll’s House” on Broadway starring Jessica Chastain, was also devoid of props and of a realistic set, and also imposed a heavy-handed directorial conceit: The actors rarely stood up from their chairs. Lloyd clearly has a preferred aesthetic – call it minimalist chic – which others have praised as removing distractions so that the audience can focus on what matters. But what matters in a play? Is it only the theatrical effect?
