Malaga Theater Festival | 'The Effect': Thank Goodness We Had Theater

Monday, January 19, Teatro Cervantes. Fran Perea interrupts the applause at the end of 'The Effect' to voice what everyone was thinking: "Today ... is a pretty tough day to do theater." And to watch it. And to write about it. Almost two hours earlier, when I entered the Cervantes, Madonna's 'Bedtime Stories' was playing and the media were already talking about 40 lives cut short in Adamuz. Sadness, a lot of sadness on the faces scattered throughout the auditorium. And unease at the thought of how many times we have all traveled to and from Madrid on that same route. In my case, on the day of the disaster. However, if the theaters in Paris remained open during the Nazi occupation, if poems are read at funerals, it is because art is necessary in good times but essential in bad times. So my thanks to the entire artistic and technical team of Contemporary Theatrical Productions and the Malaga Theater Festival for keeping the window of comfort, poetry, and culture open on such a complicated day.

Because theater is an art that is always completed by the spectator. And it was not difficult to feel, in the premise laid out by British playwright Lucy Prebble, many questions very much alive at this moment. What should we feel? What explanation is there for what happens to us? Connie and Tristan don't know if they are falling in love or if their attraction is the product of the dopamine being administered to them in a pharmacological trial by doctors Norma and Tomás. And this, far from a romantic comedy, causes them a lot of pain. Although the program notes say that the issue is about the medicalization of life, I don't read that message. It seems more like a nearly philosophical reflection on the human experience. "People die," says Connie, "I'm glad to escape from that," Tristan replies. They end up making love to the rhythm of Lana del Rey's 'Young and Beautiful.' "Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?" the song says.

Expand

Prebble writes a contemporary text in terms of skin-to-skin contact with the audience, with that dilemma between the human and the scientific, between the wild and the methodical, between what we feel and what we think, which crosses our century. It is a text at times complicated, at times beautiful. And it is very well-read by Juan Carlos Fisher, with a completely clear proposal, highlighting the acting work and the accurate sound space by Luis Miguel Cobo. It is a production that goes from less to more, that lets you enjoy and does not bore. Alicia Borrachero and Fran Perea, the doctors, hold a very delicate balance, with two characters that hide more than they show. Their craft is evident and they make you want to know more. Elena Rivera and Itzan Escamilla, the patients, engage in a relationship that holds nothing back, and they do it spectacularly. Particularly Escamilla, who goes through all the emotional and clinical states imaginable with astonishing naturalness.

Yes, yesterday was a pretty tough day to watch theater. But thankfully, we had theater.