What I liked
I liked how the voices in his head that were depicted as actual people onstage were actually real people in his life maybe only one of them was a figment of his imagination, which was his idealized friend or male figure that he looked up to that was like a big Brother type of situation maybe that was missing in his life being in a family with two sisters also kind of a nod to the missing father figure in his life.. I thought they were just random voices of men and women at first, but then you saw that the voices were actually really real people in his family especially the voice of his father at the end that I thought was just some random guy. It was very clever way of demonstrating theatrical way how we internalize external sources of validation or rejection in our lives beyond just the simple concept of a schizophrenic with voices.
What I didn't like
I just didn’t find the conversation with the father coming home at the end very believable, but maybe that was on purpose because maybe it was the main character’s “fantasy” of what his conversation with his father might be like. Almost like a projection. It was almost like a nod to the audience of, “did he really visit his father and did he really bring home this girl from the Psych Unit or was this all a fantasy he had about wishing what he could do these things in real life?” Maybe you could make it a M night Shyamalan style ending where he just wakes up after getting an injection in the psych unit recalling this dream he had, or throw some kind of twist in there to make the audience question whether or not this was all just a figment of his imagination…that’s just my twisted Psychiatrist mind. But then it might rob the audience of the heroes journey.
My overall impression
It was a very realistic portrayal of all of the different paths that people are on in an inpatient psychiatric unit. They were at different stages of acceptance of their problem and stages of willingness to take steps to get treatment. It was portrayed in a very realistic, non-fantastical way with a great deal of time explored about the consequences of taking medication weighing the stability it provides you with the side effects how that affects things such as your sex drive, and the stigma associated with whether or not you are desirable in relationships or whether or not people would want to be in a relationship with you by disclosing your condition. It really expanded the conversation of stigma from the patient’s perspective without oversimplifying treatment or vilifying the system or the patient or medications in general, it was a very evenhanded realistic approach of all of the tensions that exist with coming to grips with someone’s own reality, their struggles and being bound by the system, not only of the inpatient system, but societal expectations, etc. very thought-provoking
