Despite its alluring description, A Butterfly Effect was completely disappointing. While it did explore, as promised, the influences of decisions on a wide range of people, it wasn’t engaging. The performance was disorganised and while there was some laughter in the audience, it was sparse and far between.

Every night is a different show and Saturday’s show followed the story of Jane (Jakelene Vulasinovic) as she tells her son Daniel (Ben Watts) the truth about his father. Jane’s decision to keep her son’s paternity a secret goes on to affect Daniel, his girlfriend (Coby Yolland) and her mother (Amanda Knights) as well.

At one point, the actors muddled up the plot. They seemed confused about who Daniel’s father figure is. At first he was a piggish uncle and later he somehow transforms into a stranger. It was a confusing and all too obvious mistake.

The best thing about the show was Coby’s reading of Enid Blyton in a put-on posh English voice. She was a very realistic and sarcastic character, giving perhaps the best performance of the lot. Together, she and Amanda made a great mother-daughter team, showing a realistic, if somewhat clingy, relationship.

A Butterfly Effect was completely improvised and on that front, well done. The performance flowed well and all the characters seemed to pick up the thread and produce something realistic with the premise.

Ben and Coby both demonstrated great improvisation skills and were able to channel the emotional reactions that the situation needed. Unfortunately Jakelene and Amanda were not as convincing. There were often too-long pauses between speeches which could have been either dramatically or emotionally effective but in this case they aren’t. One can only hope that Saturday’s performance is the product of exhaustion from many nights on stage. It failed to captivate the audience and, overall, was a disappointing performance.