We often talk about couples having or not having chemistry. That is just a figure of speech, but modern science has revealed a real connection between chemicals and mood and emotion. That is what Lucy Prebble’s play, first seen in what was then the National’s Cottesloe Theatre back in 2012, is concerned with. It presents a pair of volunteer human guinea pigs taking part in the trial of a new drug that might prove a tool for treating depression.
Jamie Lloyd’s new production, its text slightly tweaked to match the casting and update some references, is presented with suitably clinical precision on a traverse in a reconfigured auditorium. Soutra Gilmour’s monochrome design offers a stage bare except for two chairs and a white tub, which it turns out contains a human brain. Such simplicity is combined with clouds of mist at critical moments, lighting by Jon Clark that isolates actors by marking out the area around them or sends a tremor through the legion of lamps on the grid that rises as the play starts, and Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante’s score with its pulsing beats and heavy breaths with a force that can feel ritualistic as though driving out devils. You hear it first out in the foyer, and it always seems there, however faint.
The trial subjects are Tristan, a streetwise Hackney guy, already a drug test veteran and doing it for the money, and Connie, a psychology student from Canada of Nigerian lineage who needs cash for her travel plans and thinks the experience will help her studies.
The experiment is being conducted with split-second precision by Dr Lorna James, psychologist of working-class origins, and has been commissioned by the drug company’s Dr Toby Sealey. These two, who observe and discuss the trial, differ in their medical standpoints; they also have a personal backstory.
As the trial progresses, Tristan and Connie become increasingly involved with each other as their dopamine levels increase; is this the effect of the drug or is the emotion natural? Are they on the drug or a placebo? What is it that makes them break the trial rules?
Papa Essiedu’s Tristan is cocky and charismatic. He comes on strongly to his co-guinea pig, but involuntary movements and tiny tremors reveal an underlying insecurity. As his dosage increases, so does the shaking. This is a multi-layered, very physical performance. Taylor Russell’s Connie, at first rather shy and very controlled, discovers abandonment, but are her passionate feelings released by the drug or aroused naturally?
This is a pairing that produces theatre magic, and Lloyd emphasises its erotic excitement by theatrical blackouts and lighting flashes. Although well-known for her work on screen, Russell is making her professional stage debut and it is a fine one; like Essiedu, she is splendid. Always intensely watchable, they are especially moving together as they play out the trial’s aftermath.
Michele Austin as Dr James and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith as Dr Seeley are equally well-matched. The way they represent opposing views is perhaps a little too simplistic, but there’s also a deft introduction of concerns about gender and privilege.
What may seem a stripped-down staging is in fact extraordinarily detailed. It focuses the attention and holds it without a break for 100 or more minutes, framing exciting performances.