She has seen the show many times, and each time, she says she still cries. Dima Alansari is the publicist for maladjusted, a play aimed at humanizing mental health issues, the system and the people within it.
maladjusted brings together actual people from the mental health system, both patients and professionals, as actors and takes its inspiration from their stories to create an interactive narrative.
“I don’t know, I’ve never had that feeling before where I’m seeing something so real, so authentic, that no matter how many times they play it, it’s like the truth, it’s raw, it’s real, it’s in your face,” Alansari said.
The play, which stops in St. Paul on Feb. 24 as part of its Alberta and B.C. tour, is presented by Theatre for Living, which often features hard-hitting subjects such as meth addiction and homelessness.
“What happened is that we were beginning to find people were concerned about the subject of mental health,” she said, adding Theatre for Living put out a call to people working in and with the mental health system.
“We wanted the real voices,” she explained, adding 191 people responded, of which 44 patients and professionals were chosen to be part of a play.
Based on their stories, a few narratives emerged that created maladjusted, including the story of a teenager struggling with sadness over a friend’s death and a homeless man on prescription drugs facing dangerous circumstances.
The story is told using forum theatre, which opens the door to audience participation and dialogue. The play runs all the way through once, so the audience can see the situation and the problems presented, and then stops.
“It leaves you in mid-climax; it doesn’t give you a resolution,” explains Alansari. The play enters rewind mode, and starts again from the beginning. However, this time, audience members are invited to freeze the action. By yelling ‘stop,’ people can replace the characters they see struggling and try out new ways of addressing the struggle, which changes the course of the play.
A creative, action-based dialogue about issues emerges, which “ is fun, profound, entertaining and full of surprises,” according to a press release. As part of the dialogue, community scribes also take down notes from audience interaction, leading to ideas and thoughts for policy change.
“This is exciting. This is social justice – there’s something very satisfactory about it,” said Alansari. “I love art for art’s sake but I also love that art can make a difference.”
Theatre for Living partnered with the Town of St. Paul to bring the production to the community. Town FCSS director Oralee Williams explained mental health awareness falls into FCSS’s mandate, and is an important topic that needs to be brought into the light.
She referenced the Bell Let’s Talk campaign to de-stigmatize mental illness, saying that people immediately assume that if a person has a mental health issue, that they’re sick.
“That person, at this moment, could just be experiencing a life challenge. The system itself is what needs to be fixed,” she said, adding that the negative needs to be turned into a positive, by focusing, for instance, that a person is asking for a help because they want to get better.
The play takes place on Feb. 24 at 7:30 p.m. at the St. Paul Recreation Centre. Tickets are $15 each, and are available by calling the Town of St. Paul FCSS office, at 780-645-5311.
