During this last month, I had been blessed to have been a part of an amazing production put on at my college called "Not Enough". This two scene show was written by two amazing playwrights, Laurel McKenzie and Gabi Lovelace and directed by Claire Heronemus. This show was a staged reading that centered around mental illness and suicide and the effects it can have on people, friends and family. I was given the opportunity to portray a high school principal, Mr. Danatio, who was trying to heavily censor the school's newspaper by trying to explain to the other character in the scene, Abigail, that printing this could indirectly cause someone else to act out and create another tragedy. Personally, I would have sided with Abigail on her way of dealing with the situation, which was printing an article about how amazing a person this student was, and remembering her for who she was and not how she passed away. But the goal was not to tell who is right or wrong, but to see the problem from both sets of eyes. For this show, one of the director's goals was to not make Mr. Danatio the bad guy, but to show how some people may see this issue first hand and try and deal with it in the best way they can think of, with that way sometimes being the absolute opposite of popular opinion.
The other show, written by Gabi Lovelace, addressed the issue of mental health in the family. It focused on Jackie, a girl who had a suicide scare and is in the recovery phase. And in this show, it is revealed what some of the possible contributing factors are to why she wanted to do what she did. But one surprising twist that caught even us, the cast, off guard when we first read the script was that, Jackie wasn't the first one in the family to have a suicide scare. It was revealed that her father had also attempted when the girls were younger, but lucky it did not work. This also brings to the table that mental illness and depression can run in the family and it should not just be assumed that it is something wrong with the person.
Mental illness is a very serious issue and is one that needs to get more attention in society, because it can effect so many people and their loved ones. I just hope that with our play, we can help move the discussion of mental illness further to being an open and accepted topic in public, even if just a little.
