For playwright Lisa Loomer, Side Effects May Include…, now playing as part of the Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF), is a deeply personal project. In 2019, just as the COVID epidemic was about to begin, Loomer’s son developed a little known, but devastating, condition, akathisia. In 2021, Loomer wrote a lengthy article about her son’s experience with the condition and the infuriating struggle she had with the medical system in trying to get help for him. The play hews closely to the story she wrote.
Some background: Akathisia is clinically defined as “a neuropsychiatric syndrome and movement disorder that makes it difficult to sit or remain still due to an inner restlessness… A person with akathisia experiences an intense sensation of unease or an inner restlessness. This results in a compulsion to move… In most cases, the movement is repetitive. This uncontrollable need to move can cause extreme distress.”
“Extreme distress” hardly does justice to the experience of Gabriel, the play’s young man having to deal with akathisia. “Living in a scream” is how one character describes it. In her article, Loomer speaks of akathisia sufferers as feeling “like having your blood replaced with battery acid” or “like being burned alive in a locked coffin … like being violently tortured from the inside out.” It often leads to suicidal ideation, with which Gabriel contends in the play.
Gabriel’s mother (Liza Fernandez) says, from the beginning, that the play is Gabriel’s story. Much of the play, however, centers on his mother, who tells the story, often breaking the fourth wall to directly address the audience about events and what lies behind them. Except for a brief video, Gabriel (Micah Myers), who everyone talks about, does not himself appear on stage throughout most of the play.
Actress 1 (Sophie Zmorrod), Actress 2 (Susan Lynskey), and Male Actor 1 (Jimmy Kieffer) portray a wide variety of people with whom Gabriel’s mother interacts: her husband, a friend, and a bewildering array of doctors and other medical providers who frequently misdiagnose Gabriel, offer competing treatment ideas, and with one exception, fail to help him or make matters worse. Gabriel’s mother speaks of the situation being “Kafkaesque,” and the situation is one in which that frequently overused term fits all too well.
The actors playing multiple roles distinguish their various characters through a style of speaking, a minor costume change, or a tweak of hair design. When they are playing someone close to the mother — Kieffer as her husband, Lynskey as her best friend, Zmorrod as Gabriel’s girlfriend — they create believable and often sympathetic characters. When they portray doctors and others in the medical system, they provide brief sketches of often woefully dense cogs in an impersonal machine. Director Meredith McDonough maintains the clarity of the action through all the many changes and interactions.
Fernandez gives a stunning performance as the frightened, angry, loving, persistent parent who wants to fix her son, but finds only obstacles in the system. Helping her son in desperate circumstances upends her life and changes her relationships. In her determination to understand what is happening to Gabriel, she learns that akathisia can be triggered not only by antipsychotic medications but by widely prescribed medications for garden variety depression and anxiety, which Gabriel had been given.
Loomer invites the audience to consider a number of important questions. What is normal, and who gets to define it? When you can’t fix a problem for someone you love, how do you accompany them through what they’re experiencing? When is suffering drastic enough to justify suicide? It turns out that genetic testing could identify people who are particularly susceptible to developing akathisia. Why isn’t that something that the medical system and pharmaceutical industry require, as a matter of truly informed consent, before prescribing any medication whose side effects can include akathisia in such people? Fully informed consent, with respect to all side effects, is what Loomer and the play demand for all medications.
Loomer and Fernandez find moments to break the tension with humor. On one occasion, roughly midway through the play, Fernandez asks the audience to get up and stretch, explaining that it’s no longer possible to mount a two-act play in American theater.
Chelsea Warren’s set centers a screen for Mona Kasra’s projections, which form an important part of the storytelling. The remainder of the set consists of functional wooden frameworks on either side of the main playing area.
Gabriel insists that “I am not this injury. I will not let this injury define my life.” That is something with which I am sure Kevin Kling, in his current CATF play, and the generation of great disability activists who made the Americans with Disabilities Act a reality, would readily agree. Side Effects May Include… makes the point vividly.
Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission.
Side Effects May Include… plays through August 3, 2025, presented by the Contemporary American Theater Festival performing at Studio 112, 92 West Campus Drive, on the campus of Shepherd University, Shepherdstown WV, in repertory with four other CATF plays. Times, dates, and ticketing information may be found on the CATF website or by calling the CATF box office at 681-240-2283.
Side Effects May Include…
By Lisa Loomer
Directed by Meredith McDonough
CAST
His Mother: Liza Fernandez*
Actress 1: Sophie Zmorrod*
Actress 2: Susan Lynskey*
Male Actor 1: Jimmy Keiffer*
Male Actor 2: Micah Meyers*
PRODUCTION TEAM
Scenic Design: Chelsea M. Warren**
Associate Scenic Design: Ruidi Yang
Costume Design: Kathleen Geldard**
Lighting Design: Mary Louise Geiger**
Sound Design: Christian Fredrickson**
Projections Design: Mona Kasra**
Production Stage Manager: Lindsay Eberly*
Assistant Stage Manager: Allie Blaylock
Casting: Pat McCorkle LTD.
Dramaturg: Tom Bryant
Vocal Coach: Kiristen Trump
*Actors’ Equity Association
**United Scenic Artists
***Stage Directors and Choreographers Society
SEE ALSO:
Contemporary American Theater Festival announces full 2025 lineup (news story, March 31, 2025)
