To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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A shot in the arm
PETER MASON admires an amateur production of an important play about the medicalisation of the human condition
CHEMICAL ROMANCE; Sedos presents The Effect by Lucy Prebble
[Stephen Russell]
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
The Effect
Bridewell Theatre, London
HAVING had its debut at the National Theatre in 2012, Lucy Prebble’s clinical drugs trial drama is being given another welcome run-out at the Bridewell, an intimate and intriguing old space with modern steep-tier seating that gives it the feel of a medical lecture theatre.
There are indeed a couple of short medical lectures within the play, each delivered by one of the two senior medics overseeing trials of a new anti-depressant drug that are being administered to volunteers in increasingly high doses over the course of several days.
Toby (Daniel Saunders) is firmly wedded to the idea that depression is caused by chemical imbalance, and is a fan of what he calls “the psycho-pharmaceutical revolution,” while his colleague Lorna (Jessica Dawes), who has her own problems with the condition, is much less convinced, believing that melancholia has strong roots in environmental factors.
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