Once again, the theater department is preparing Mago Hunt Theater for performance day, but this time, the stage is set to recreate a clinical drug trial using new technology: a revolving set of turntables.
“You're very close to [the stage],” Performing and Fine Arts Assistant Professor Andy Christensen said. “Most of the seats are probably no more than 10 feet away from the actors. No matter where you're sitting, you'll see a completely different production every night.”
“The Effect” will make its debut Feb. 19-22 at 7:30 p.m. and on Feb. 23 at 2:00 p.m. in the Mago Hunt Theater. Tickets can be purchased at the box office the day of or online using applicable discount codes.
Attendees with any valid student ID may join the student rush before opening for free admission.
The play, written by Lucy Prebble and directed by Christensen, follows two clinical drug trial participants, Connie and Tristan, as they test the side effects of an antidepressant.
Romance meets thrill meets drama as audiences question whether the protagonists fall in love as a result of the synthetic dopamine, their close proximity or a real romantic connection. The play also invites audience members to learn about mental health, neuroscience and the ethics of love, according to Christensen.
While the play follows the protagonists as they differentiate between symptoms of the antidepressant and reality, Christensen says audience members will also begin grappling with what is real in their own lives.
“It is a fascinating play about who we are and how we know who we are,” Christensen said. “You are second guessing what reality is, to be sitting there and going, ‘Do I know anything about what is actually happening in front of me?’”
According to junior political science and global affairs major Laya Duguid, who plays trial participant Connie, audience members are not alone in their skepticism of Connie and Tristan’s love connection.
As the pair tries to unpack if their love is real, supervising doctors navigate the ethical boundaries of the antidepressant and its influence on the participants.
Senior theater major Aria Hroma, who plays a psychologist running the antidepressant drug trial, says her character undergoes many twists and her eventual downfall.
According to Hroma, though clinical drug trials are unfamiliar to some audience members, the protagonists of the production still experience something many UP students can relate to: young adulthood.
“Connie and Tristan are both roughly the same age as your typical student,” Hroma said. “It's having that relatable aspect [with] the whole theme of mental health, medication and these big questions that get brought up throughout the play.”
In addition to relating to students through themes of young adulthood, Duguid says the play can also appeal to audience members regardless of whether they consider themselves romantics or realists.
“Andy said a really good thing in rehearsal the other day,” Duguid said. “People romanticize their life a lot now, which you kind of have to, and this play is for them, but it's also for the realists. That resonated with me a lot because we're all both things at the same time.”
Kalena O’Connell is a News Reporter for The Beacon. She can be reached at oconnell27@up.edu.
