Theatre is a powerful tool. Arguably more intimate than a film or TV show, and more immediate and dynamic than a book or play, theatre can provide a particularly absorbing experience. It lends itself to the audience and actors losing a grapple on their sense of the show as “performance.“ It is easy in a play to have moments when the line between actor, and character blur – and in the arena of the drama the play’s narrative becomes for a brief second overwhelmingly real.

In a medium like drama, the portrayal of mental illness on stage is complicated. Something so intensely private is placed on the extremely public elevation of the stage, whereas poetry feels private and intimate, and so might be seen as the more conventional mode of exploring mental illness. Yet, in Camdram, there seems to be a tendency to explore mental illness on stage in shows such as Folie Circulaire, The Effect, and 4.48 Psychosis. A lot of Camdram shows seem to act more like the confessional poetry of the mid-century.

“Something so intensely private is placed on the extremely public elevation of the stage”

This isn’t to say that an exploration of mental health is unique to the Camdram stage. Theatre lends itself to intense subjects, and there is no lack of violence, tears, and heartbreak in the theatre world. Drama is a medium fit to deal with the extremities of human emotion and experience. Mental illness could be said to be explored in The Bacchae by Euripides, Shakespearean plays like Hamlet and King Lear, and relatively more recent shows like A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman. However, at the moment, the most popular theatre in the UK is musicals like SiX, Wicked, Les Misérables, and Mamma Mia! So, what is it about student theatre that results in, comparatively, so many personal explorations of the depths and complications of mental health?

My first answer is quite obvious, the student theatre scene is smaller and gives more opportunities to new writers. In the non-student theatre world getting a show greenlit and finding funding can be incredibly difficult to impossible. The relative accessibility of the stage in Camdram lends itself to experimentation. And if there is any topic which lends itself to experimentation, it’s an exploration of the human mind. The manipulation of the mind, the alternative way of viewing the world, and emotional extremes allow for avant-garde sets, symbolic characters, and hyper-dramatic acting.

“Drama invokes a more immediate sympathy”

Capturing mental illness, rather than being unsuited to the stage, can be intensely benefited by it. A stage play can capture the ‘otherworldliness’ and depersonalisation of extreme mental states through the symbolic costumes and music, creating an encompassing experience which novels and poems have to work harder to achieve. Drama invokes a more immediate sympathy. When properly absorbed in the play, we inevitably feel sympathy as if the character is a real person; who of course, in plays about mental illness, the character very easily could be based on.

I think another aspect of this topic’s popularity is the destigmatisation of mental illness. Though mental illness, and mental “wellness” practices, are less taboo than ever there is still a lot of improvement to be made. There is a dichotomy in the perceptions of mental illnesses, while anxiety and depression are perhaps overexposed in popular culture to the point that people still say “I’m depressed” as a minor inconvenience, and the worst aspects of these conditions are often conveniently forgotten. Meanwhile, other conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are still intensely stigmatised and misunderstood by most.

It is therefore important that art, that brilliant medium for de-stigmatisation and conscientious exploration, continues to explore and normalise mental illness. With student theatre we have a unique opportunity for people with first-hand experience to control the narrative, providing valuable insight through a more accurate, intimate portrayal of these conditions – contrasting the way mental illness is often used as a plot device in TV and film.

“Having someone else act out some of your most intimate thoughts cannot be an easy experience”

But, while this is a massive benefit and argument for portraying mental health on the stage there is also something to say about the emotional precarity for writers who choose to explore their experiences on stage. Having someone else act out some of your most intimate thoughts cannot be an easy experience. Not only is the “personal” made extremely public, but it takes on a new life in the form of the actor’s choices and interpretations of the script.

Often, the struggle of mental illness is also one of a struggle to communicate whether it be in therapy or a seeking to be understood by popular culture. In light of this, theatre again is an odd, and extremely vulnerable, method to explore mental illness. Theatre requires a lot of communication – rather than just the writer communicating via the page to the reader, which is precarious enough and more than enables miscommunication and mistranslation. Theatre adds an extra step: writer to the page, page to the actor, actor to audience. There is the added dialogue with another intermediary person and the emotional labour for the actor. It is important to note that if an actor is entering the headspace of this character every day, multiple times, in rehearsals it will inevitably become difficult to entirely divorce that mental state from your own.

“There is no point exploring mental health with the aim of de-stigmatisation if this ends up causing more harm than good”

But for the writer, allowing someone else to act out your personal experiences requires a lot of trust, and the strangeness of experiencing your personal world being explored on stage is not for everyone. This is extremely important to note, writers should first and foremost focus on themselves and whether they feel this would be a helpful and healthy experience for them. No five-star varsity review or successful production is worth risking feelings of fear, regret, and overexposure which could come if this is done too hastily. There is no point exploring mental health with the aim of de-stigmatisation if this ends up causing more harm than good.

Despite this, overall, the exploration of mental illness to such a large extent is something uniquely available in student theatre, and these shows undoubtedly play a major role in destigmation. These productions allow an audience to sympathise with a character’s situation – and by extension, those who struggle with it at large. But writing about one’s mental health for a theatre show can at once empower the writer and place them in an incredibly vulnerable position. It is important to make sure that we lean more towards the former. Despite the benefits of de-stigmatisation, a public portrayal should not come at the cost of a writer’s mental health.

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