Review: Amygdala, Print Room Balcony

“I should imagine perspective plays a part”

Geraldine Alexander’s last stage outing in The Empty Quarter was pretty astoundingly good so I was intrigued to see how her debut as a playwright would turn out in Amygdala, tucked away in a found space at The Print Room. Hermione Gulliford plays Catherine, a successful lawyer with a busy family life who finds herself unravelling when a chance encounter on a bus leads to a heady affair with a handsome young man, Alex Lanipekun’s Joshua, but one with terrible consequences.

In the aftermath, Jasper Britton’s psychiatrist Simon is charged with trying to fix the emotional wreckage, the damage done to the ‘amygdala’ – the part of the brain where emotion and memory reside – but in delving into her psyche, he unwittingly stirs part of his own. It is a simply drawn play – although one full of densely complex thoughts and writing – but one in which both of Catherine’s key relationships feel curiously unrealistic – the therapist’s couch unleashes a high degree of unprofessionalism and the affair feels a little convenient.

That said, there is no doubting the quality of the acting in Alexander’s production (she directs too) particularly from Gulliford in the intense later stages of the play. Britton is strong too as he tries to suggest why such a seasoned worker might be tempted to cross a crucial boundary and Lanipekun plays off his handsome looks most effectively. The awkwardness of the space means that the production always seems like it is struggling against something but given the nature of the writing, it almost seems appropriate.

Running time: 100 minutes (without interval)
Booking until 14th December

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