My own experience of mental illness is what sparks my interest in Inpatient, a theatre piece based on writer and performer Sarah Andrews Reynolds’ years of similar suffering. The play, at BATS Studio, has been decades in the making, she tells us, beginning with her life in California and coming to fruition in Aotearoa New Zealand with the support of family, friends and other theatre practitioners.

Subtitled How I Spent my Summer Vacation, audiences may be forgiven for expecting a measure of light-heartedness. What we get though is a lengthy commentary on a catalogue of various forms mental illness can take: borderline personality disorder, substance abuse, schizophrenia and clinical depression to name a few. Reynolds personifies each of twelve patients engaged in group therapy in a private psychiatric hospital in California and relates their experiences and thought processes in sometimes agonising detail.

The show’s length – 90 minutes – and the nature of the content have an overwhelming effect. Most memorable are the actual quotes from some of the patients: “I look like me, but I’m still f….up”; “I used to paint, I used to write”; “I turn my pain into a party trick”. And there’s a highlight: Reynolds creates a song out of the string of prescription drugs she’s familiar with. This is the closest to light-heartedness we get! I could do with more.

It takes courage to expose yourself in the way Reynolds does, even if it risks appearing self-indulgent. Having based my own performance on personal experience, I’ve taken as my mantra: if you’re the only performer/narrator on stage, do not attempt to sustain audience interest for more than 50 minutes – maximum! No matter what your material, no matter what your delivery, no matter what your experience or reputation as a performer, awareness of audience is an important factor.

That said, there is much to learn here. Chiefly, the fortitude to contend with and overcome any mental illness or distress. Then there is the wide variety of forms the illness takes: Reynolds personifies twelve of these. Inpatient also highlights the problem with institutional responses to human distress; we get some of the comments psychiatrists may make and how inappropriate they may be. And above all, we get how valuable and indeed indispensable is the support and love of family members. Renolds concludes with a heartfelt statement about this.

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