In conjunction with Spectator’s “Mind Matters” series, several A&E reporters explored the manner in which mental illness is depicted and examined in entertainment. Famous artists are not exempt from mental illness, and many have recently used their art as not only a means of catharsis, but also as a forum for discussing their illnesses. In the past few months alone, theater and television have addressed depression, bipolar disorder, suicide, ADHD, and the role mental health plays in our society.
—Ruthie Fierberg
NEXT TO NORMAL
Former Columbia students Brian Yorkey. CC ’03, and Tom Kitt, CC ’96, are the creative forces behind Next to Normal. Originally entitled Feeling Electric, the musical concerns the unraveling of a nuclear family trying to come to grips with the delusions of its troubled matriarch.
Diana (played by Alice Ripley) is a suburban housewife who suffers from bipolar disorder. Haunted by a tragic event in her past, she seeks a combination therapy of specialists and pharmacological cocktails. Meanwhile, her husband struggles to cope with her illness, her daughter hankers for her parents’ attention, and her son remains the omnipotent golden boy. The musical had its start at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2005, and made its off-Broadway debut at Second Stage Theatre last season.
Unique in content, Next to Normal was the only production to ever feature a song and dance in Act I that closely detailed the risky psychiatric procedure of electroshock therapy. But with its uptown transfer, its creators have done away with this controversial scene in the operating room, and director Michael Greif (of Rent) has opted for sincerity.
It was a wise choice, because while Next to Normal doesn’t promise happy endings, it makes you feel anything but numb. Composer Kitt and book writer and lyricist Yorkey have created an addicting pop-rock score that moves a taboo subject to Broadway’s center stage.
—Laura Hedli
Next to Normal is playing at the Booth Theatre (222 W. 45th Street). Rush tickets are available for $25, and regular tickets can be bought at www.telecharge.com.
KERNEL OF SANITY
When a show leaves you confused about what happened, you know the topic will circulate in your head for a long time after the final bows. Such is the case with New Federal Theater’s Kernel of Sanity.
Set in the ’70s, Kernel of Sanity is about a day in the life of Frank Tracy, a washed-up actor who retreated to the Midwest to escape his past. Later we meet his reluctant girlfriend, Rita, and Roger Peterson (a fellow actor from their past collaboration on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).
On the surface, the theme of insanity enters the play when Frank receives a letter from the government. They have registered him as mentally insane, a label that results in a monthly stipend. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.
When Roger stops by unannounced, his long periods of silence mixed with enraged tangents about becoming Smokey Robinson beg the question—who is really insane?
What was fact at the beginning of the show eventually turns into fiction. Rita tells Frank she is pregnant, but later claims that she was only proving she could act. Roger admits to having murdered a producer. When Frank asks him if it is true, Roger refuses to tell him.
They all know their lives are on a downward slope toward self-destruction, yet none of them try to stop it. Roger carries around a prop gun, Frank is perpetually writing his autobiography, and Rita has a psychotic obsession with Janis Joplin. The levels of lunacy rise more and more until all sense of reality is lost.
What the characters learn is that mental instability is not a joke. Because of mental disintegration, people become recluses, pathological liars, and even murderers. The worst part is that you don’t even realize you are insane until it is too late. All you can do is hope that there is just one Kernel of Sanity left.
—Lily Cedarbaum
Kernel of Sanity is playing at the Henry Street Settlement (465 Grand Street) until May 3. Call 212-598-0400 for tickets, which are available for $20.
BREAKING BAD
In AMC’s hit drama Breaking Bad, the name of the game is desperation.
Although it affects everyone to a certain extent, desperation takes a significant toll on the show’s protagonist, high school chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston)—it pushes him to open up his own crystal meth lab, and subsequently to the edge of his sanity.
In the pilot episode, Walt frantically drives the RV that doubles as his meth lab through New Mexico, wearing only underwear and a gas mask, and with a gun in tow. Just three weeks before this first scene, he was a normal (albeit bored) family man. However, soon after his 50th birthday, he is diagnosed with stage three terminal lung cancer.
Faced with the realization that there will not be enough money for his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn), his son Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte), who has cerebral palsy, and his unborn daughter to survive when he is dead, Walt looks for a way to provide for them. He decides to put his chemistry skills to good use: cooking and dealing crystal meth with one of his former students, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul).
This decision splits Walt into two very different people. At home, he tries to be the loving husband and father he has always been. In the drug world, he is Heisenberg, the absolutely ruthless man who makes the purest meth. The stress of his double life makes it almost impossible for him to function well in either role.
Now in its second season, the show makes it hard to tell how tight of a grip Walt actually has on his sanity. Nonetheless, it is visibly becoming more difficult for him to live with himself, the things he has done, and the things he knows he will do.
In last Sunday’s episode, “Negro y Azul,” the show highlighted the increasing flimsiness of Walt’s justification for his meth business. He is becoming a big shot as Heisenberg, testing the limits of his morality as a cold-blooded dealer. He manipulates Jesse and convinces him to expand their operation.
In terms of securing his family’s future, expanding the business may be the best move for Walt—but at what cost? Steadily, he is creating enemies much more threatening than himself, and the precious time he has left with Skyler is strained, as she is now beginning to suspect that he is hiding something.
Walt is playing a dangerous game with both the law and his health, and it seems that there are few, if any, safe exits left. Big problems loom for this divided soul, and he may lose more than he hoped to win.
—Liz Lucero
Breaking Bad airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on AMC.
FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF
“Sometimes you have to dance to keep from dyin’,” the women declared as they danced and stepped onstage, each unified with the others yet distinguishable by her respective colors.
Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf—presented this past weekend by Columbia’s Black Theater Ensemble—is a choreopoem exploring the plight of women of color. The women’s stories are of mental and sexual abuse, exploitation, and manipulation.
Each woman represents a distinct color, just as each one struggles with distinct situations that have exacted all her strength and exhausted her to frailty of stature and will. The play deals with the way “colored girls” are perceived in the world, but, more importantly, it also deals with how they view themselves.
For Colored Girls consists mainly of monologues, one overlying theme of which is the exhaustion of women who are historically supposed to be able to handle everything. Their questioning of their entire existence is described by Lady in Yellow: “bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored is a metaphysical dilemma.”
Despite this inner conflict, the play is not about suicide, but rather about the strength and communal support it takes to prevent mental collapse. The women help each other through their suffering, and celebrate the reclaiming of mind, body, and essence through dance, song, and step.
The unity of the bright colors is a constant reinforcing connection that prevents the women from becoming mentally insane. In many ways, both the written work and the production’s use of light and color render depression and suicide a solitary and lonely act—in stark contrast to the happiness the women want for themselves. But they dance to keep from dying, illustrating that unity is the most useful survival technique.
—Kelicia Hollis
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