HowlRound: I had been invited to observe Belarus Free Theatre’s (BFT) workshop exploring A Road Back from Schizophrenia, a controversial 2012 memoir by Norwegian Arnhild Lauveng chronicling her painful recovery from schizophrenia, in preparation for Tomorrow I Was Always A Lion, their new show based on Lauveng’s account. The idea was to gather medical professionals and artists who live with hearing voices (HV) or seeing visions (SV), to work together with BFT to consider director Vladimir Shcherban’s three questions about the work in relation to its adaptation to stage: “What is schizophrenia? Where is the line between the illness and a patient’s rights? What methods can we find to tell this private story in a simple way?”
4 comments:
For a topic as complicated and emotional as schizophrenia, open communication and collaboration between artists and scientists are absolutely necessary. Scientists set the factual grounds for a theatrical rendition of the reality of mental illness, while artists bring the story closer to people’s hearts, breaking the stigma and foster understanding. As the article point out, there is a lot of challenges in how people approach schizophrenia and other mental illnesses in theater. The lack of knowledge and the process of writing might cause confusions about the reality of mental illness, and it is also difficult to present multiple perspectives at once. I think that these challenges may be addressed by a more interactive form of theater. In a way, theater serves as a form of education. The stage may not be open only to the cast, but to the audience as well, incorporating the workshop element with a theatrical performance. The workshop described in the article has been enlightening for those who participated, so I feel that a theater production with a workshop element could be informative for the audience as well.
Theatre is often expected to be an accurate portrayal of the human condition, above all. Regardless of how elevated or distant the content of a show is, the actors are expected to handle the material with gravitas, and display humanity in inhuman situations. I believe that plays tackling mental health issues are no different. Naturally, actually casting a schizophrenic person in a theatrical production would be a tricky ordeal, since the sensory overload that often accompanies being onstage would not doubt be too much for people with the issue to take in. The author brings up 4:48 Psychosis, a show that is far removed from our reality in terms of how it is written, but is a very real, very human portrayal of bipolar disorder and crippling depression, written by Sarah Kane as a type of suicide note prior to her death. When CMU put on a production of the show, one of the main problems that I heard discussed was that the issues tackled were so complex, that the actors drew on things that weren't personal to them, and, as such, some of the story beats came across as phoned-in and vaguely hurtful towards people that actually have to deal with these issues. I agree with the author that the interface of art, science, and medicine can be potentially transformative, but everyone in the company needs to understand that when you are putting on such a complex work, everyone needs to be cognizant of the stakes of the piece, as they are representing a culture that people are so fond of turning a blind eye to. Shining a light on the issues is the only way to get to the heart of them, but that light must be an accepting and true one.
It is always a difficult situation to try and recreate an experience no one on your team has experienced. But the goal of theatre is to tell stories from all walks of life, so it is inevitable that some harder stories get told. Dealing with schizophrenia and other mental health issues in theatre is incredibly important, but difficult to do. It could be very easy for the team at Belarus’ Free Theatre to simply make assumptions and carry on with their production. But instead, they decided to invite a whole panel of people to gain a better perspective. And the workshop they held was incredibly productive. This is exactly the kind of thing the rest of the theatre world should take note of. It shows a great deal of respect for the subject matter and the playwright, and allows the team to create a more authentic performance. I hope that due to the success of this workshop, BFT and other theatres around the world continue to do thorough research in this manner.
I completely agree with Jacob in that theater is often expected to be an accurate portrayal of the human condition. However, in whose eyes is it meant to be accurate? The playwright's? The directors? Mental illness is still being extremely studied today, but no two cases of depression are alike, which makes telling stories about mental health difficult. There are some threads that are similar (not sleeping, hopelessness, etc) but not everyone can identify with every symptom. One section that really spoke to me was the section on taboos and whether we should talk about them or not. For me, talking about things that aren't supposed to be talked about take away the power that they hold. If we talked more about self-harm, for instance, than I think that people would be more open to the trying to get a person help rather than talking about it in whispers. As far as mis-diagnoses go, I find that it doesn't invalidate her story- she believed it for so many years that eventually it became a part of her.
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