I NEED HELP

[dramaturgy]

For Maxine's class I need to think about a dramaturg-driven project and find someone to collaborate on it with, and I'm worried about that so if you're a theatre professional in the New York area you should do karma a favor and contact meeeeeeeeee, but for now I am just looking for help.

I need to know about plays and musicals that somehow feature mental illness. Here's my list so far:

Next to Normal
Proof
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Hamlet
Three Days of Rain


... As you can see, I need help. >_> So give me some lists, give me some ideas, help me out. I'll even take books and movies, even though I wanted to stick to theatre. I want to focus on mentally ill main characters, where the illness is part of the plot and faced, rather than be something from a secondary character that affects the protagonist (i.e. mentally ill parent of a child -- I would put Running With Scissors in this category, for example) or played for a laugh. I am so tired of mental illness being played for a laugh.

So please, add your own, advertise this post, help a sister out.

Comments

[thinkatory.livejournal.com]

Google gave me these. I did what I could! Will think on this, though.

Broadway and TV Put Mental Illness Center Stage
Images of Mental Illness through Text and Performance

[dramaturgy.livejournal.com]

Your Googlefu >>>> my Googlefu

[thinkatory.livejournal.com]

HA. I'm sure the case would be different if I was dealing with Maxine while I was looking.

I have to bring up Sweeney Todd, I think. There's the Bedlam scenes, Lucy's fate, and of course Todd himself. I guess I have to ask what your criteria are for mental illness? Does it have to be explicitly diagnosed or can seriously, obviously crazy characters apply? Depending on your definition, that Sam Shephard play you recced to me might apply as well, or Glass Menagerie.

[dramaturgy.livejournal.com]

Those are good ones.

I honestly don't know what I'm looking for. One of my soapboxes recently (especially since getting to know N2N a bit better as a show and not just the music) has become pieces of theatre or culture that actually deal with mental illness. It's only recently become something that people are comfortable with talking about for whatever reason; it's not as big a cultural taboo as it was, so I think society is starting to look at it with more sensitivity, and it's not just something that's being used as a plot device or comic relief.

And I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but it's something that I need to say and get off my chest, so I suppose that's as good a place as any to start.

[thinkatory.livejournal.com]

Just looking at this question it's interesting how mental illness used to be coded and kind of implied rather than addressed, like you said. It'd be interesting to compare N2N's Diana to Tennessee Williams's Laura or Blanche but now I'm showing my biases. XD

[dramaturgy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, exactly. Or even in Hamlet, when the question is when does the madness start -- we've had that discussion, I think, I was kind of half asleep when we watched Tennant, but we kind of had the discussion. XD But when does the madness start, and even then it's still not really a question of how much of this illness is physical v. psychological -- because there is certainly a physiological or genetic element to certain things.

Blah. I'm babbling. I have to go get something to eat before I see ORLANDO PROD AND BEN SKOLL THIS IS GOING TO BE EPIC the play. >_>

[isis-uf.livejournal.com]

This is probably mentioned in the lists linked above, but Hamlet instantly came to mind for me.

[dramaturgy.livejournal.com]

... That is true and it's probably SUCH THE OBVIOUS ANSWER that it slipped my mind. XD Thanks!

[isis-uf.livejournal.com]

NP! It is kinda the 'gimmie' answer and so pretty easy to overlook. But really I think Ophelia's mental breakdown was considerably more interesting than Hamlet's. Might make for a different approach to look at that? I'd be more help if I could but I can count the number of non-Shakespeare plays I know on my fingers.

[dramaturgy.livejournal.com]

No, this is great. I am even supposed to be reading that one for my Shakespeare class this week, so I feel really stupid for it leaking out my ears. Thinking about it already has my thinking muscles going, though. XD Thanks!

[occultebelta.livejournal.com]

It's a stretch, but perhaps Assassins?
Mm, Grey Gardens? Depending on if they were simply antisocial or had a mental illness behind it, you might know. I don't.
... what about Jekyll and Hyde? Again, a stretch, but it's a metaphor. Don't know how into those you want to get.
I keep finding ones that are good as a stretch, agh -- this time it's Light in the Piazza.
... Sunset Boulevard?

I'll keep thinking.

[occultebelta.livejournal.com]

AH King Lear.

[cesontmesmots.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I asked the associate dramaturg here at Centerstage and here's what he said off the top of his head:

MOST Neoclassical Greek and Roman

Macbeth, Richard III

The Boys Next Door by Tom Griffin
Getting Out by Marsha Norman

[dramaturgy.livejournal.com]

Oh fellow dramaturgs, they will never disappoint. ♥ Thank you!

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

For more early modern plays, there's King Lear, Bartholomew Fair, The Duchess of Malfi, and The Changeling.

[sweet-charade.livejournal.com]

Equus might be a good example. (One of my favorite plays from high school English :D) Most of it takes place in a psychiatrist's office.

[madamevoilanska.livejournal.com]

I was going to say A New Brain, but it's not mental illness so much as "trouble in his brain."

[dramaturgy.livejournal.com]

That is true. I do love that music, though. <3

[dizzy-balloon.livejournal.com]

Hi Liz! It's Becky... August: Osage County might be a good choice. It deals with addiction, which is considered by some to be a mental disorder.