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The forecast at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre calls for rain.
Its almost enough to make one want to reference the half of the storys plot that deals with dementia.
Take all this and package it up in musical-from-movie form, and the sentimental anticipation factor increases tenfold.
But you know what is?
/ Love, hope, breath, and dreams / As cliche as that seems.
Nay, it is.
Sorry, but just pointing to something and winking doesnt make it go away.
The Notebooks songs at times barely make lyrical sense.
This isnt fertile ground for playfulness, or for romance.
Teen Noah and Allie are Boomers now, and no longer meet in the 1940s but in 1967.
Great except thatThe Notebooktries to play by two entirely different sets of rules.
Perhaps this is why Brunstetters book, on the whole, steers clear of specificity.
Details are risky; they add both flavor and flaws.
Now, hes basically just nice.
HisA Dolls Houseand hisCyranoand, less recently, hisBetrayalstripped classics naked and redressed them in leather and chic knitwear.
If youre gonna have a gimmick, it better work, bitch.
Here, it does.
Driven by four absolutely dialed-in performances,The Effectunfolds in a series of almost nightmarish flashes.
Or, is it simply a side effect of the drug?
Can their hearts be trusted if everything theyre feeling might be a mere confluence of chemicals in their brains?
What makes Prebbles play so affecting is the vast existential sweep of its central question.
Weareour bodies, our bodies are us… theres not somethingmore, says Connie.
We are this three pound lump of jelly, says Lorna, marveling at the brain.
But, she falters, its not necessarily me, is it?
I dont think we are depressed, I think were right.
The worlds literally on fire and were calling people ill and profiting from it.
Lorna clings to her sorrow asrealeven as she doubts the veracity of Connie and Tristans love.
But weve watched them flirt and bicker and slowly reveal themselves to each other.
Weve seen Connies fearfulness and anxiety and the sense of purposelessness that lies under Tristans cheeky, loose-limbed affability.
Suppose it is, in fact,justchemistry a random byproduct?
Does that make it less real?
If we can measure something, understand and analyze something,curesomething, then we have tamed it.
Love, too, is a creature of the unknown.
The Notebookis at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.The Effectis at the Shed through March 31.
