"The irreducibility of love is the subject of 'The Effect', Lucy Prebble’s very clever — and ultimately more than clever — play, artfully directed by David Cromer...'The Effect' benefits from its smaller scale...Cromer has steered these young performers into nakedly passionate portrayals...Ms. Prebble is far too smart to find a firm resolution for the debate at the center of 'The Effect'. But in the end, she leaves room for what might be called a very loving uncertainty."
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"For a play about test subjects going through extremes, 'The Effect' leaves you slightly cold...It’s a credit to playwright Lucy Prebble’s probity and wit that these questions excite the mind, even if the heart rate remains steady...It’s a solid issue drama that allows room for debate, humor and canny twists...David Cromer’s crisply intelligent production shows a touch of Ivo van Hove's Euro-chic, multimedia approach, which suits the material well...The cast does fine work."
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"Lucy Prebble’s smashing medical drama...Prebble is superbly abetted by the director David Cromer’s sleek yet passionate production. He moves the action along so fast it may induce occasional brain whiplash, while maintaining a strong theatrical frame around the proceedings, except when he breaks it for effect. Those effects would not be as powerful as they are without the top-notch work of the cast."
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"The mirror-image twosomes are too tidy for a play about the messiness of the medical profession and human emotions. And some twists stretch credulity...Still, the play delivers. And between the topnotch acting and director David Cromer’s brisk staging that makes smart use of projections it’s easy to go with it. 'The Effect' asks provocative questions about the head and the heart. It also manages to appeal to both. Win, win."
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"Provocative themes don't always make for compelling drama...'The Effect' is never as convincing as the intellectual arguments in which its characters frequently engage...The new play also suffers from lack of specificity — the characterizations of the protagonists are sketchy at best — and melodramatic plot developments that don't feel fully credible. Despite being cut by more than a half-hour in its transfer across the pond, the play lacks narrative momentum and often feels repetitive."
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"'The Effect' is somewhat compromised by an on-and-off momentum, over-the-top gestures and the deliberately clinical tone. Nevertheless, it makes for a smart, unpredictable drama that asks a lot of disconcerting questions. The cast is quite effective under Cromer’s sharp direction."
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"Prebble's script is full of memorable moments and characters that stab at the heart of Western society's troubling relationship with prescription drugs...David Cromer directs 'The Effect' with clinical precision yet somehow manages to avoid the sterility that tack often entails...The acting is satisfyingly unsafe...Brimming with challenging insight, 'The Effect' is sure to cause some heated post-show discussions, especially in our hypermedicated age."
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"It's an unusual, even provocative premise...Too bad, then, that Prebble distorts her subject matter with so much hokum...The author has some mordant points to make, but she undercuts them by making her characters behave like refugees from a sweeps-week episode of 'General Hospital'...The director, David Cromer, handles the actors as well as can be expected under these increasingly unconvincing circumstances...Prebble is a writer with talent; she should learn to get out of her own way."
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