Two minutes into the show, I was sitting in the Robert Dubbs auditorium and smiling in silent appreciation of junior Elle Setiya’s joke: “We all have different ways of dealing with stress. You cry…I scream at people…and I can’t wait to do it all over again!” However, the line begged the question: with so many people responding to stressors in many different ways, what is the right way of dealing with mental health struggles? What is the right way of discussing them?
“All In Your Head,” the Theater for Social Change (formerly known as BETCO)’s annual production which took place on Jan. 12, reckons with these questions and many more. The play only ran for half an hour, but strong performances and clever writing throughout the 10 scenes made it so that this show and the questions it posed left me pondering its subject matter well after the show.
I’ll admit some bias in saying I’m a former (some might prefer “reformed”) theater kid, so I appreciated that the first scene, “Drama Club,” satirized drama club culture. Already, I was begrudgingly impressed, especially by junior Chloe Clark, who played a freshman who ultimately calls out the upperclassmen for creating a toxic environment. With their unintentionally humorous remarks and over-the-top performances, seniors Ian Hansen and Sigal Solomon as well as Setiya drew laughs as seniors oblivious to the toxicity of their “family.”
All the scenes in “All in Your Head” were insightful and thought-provoking, albeit in different ways. Some were comical: “Super Looper and the Perpetual Commitment,” for example, featured senior Griffin Schroeder as a burnt-out and overcommitted superhero. Right away, as he bounded across the stage, donning a muscle suit, it was clear to me that he would make a very charming superhero. Even if his performance was a bit too excessive for my taste (which I acknowledge was the point, as the scene parodied the superhero genre), his shenanigans elicited a couple of small but appreciative laughs on my part, and his tribulations gave me much to root for.
Other scenes were much more somber. “Survival of the Fittest” was set on the TV show “Survivor,” which I thought was an interesting and fitting choice. The scene offered a riveting depiction of how trauma can feed into anxiety attacks with impressive performances from senior Sophia Jane as well as juniors Louisa Hansel and Bella Wang. More than that, it drew attention to the stigma surrounding anxiety, an impressive feat for a three-minute-long scene.
The two strongest scenes were “Sweet Tooth” and “Da Boyz,” which came at the end of the half hour. “Sweet Tooth” earns praise in my book for its creativity and how it took advantage of the auditorium space to create an almost suffocating sense of vulnerability. Actors, personifying body dysmorphia and thoughts of self-harm, sat among audience members and heckled an angst-ridden junior Cleo Blanding, who played a performer trying to get through a monologue. Contrary to the innocence the name evokes, the transition into this scene was jarring, but “Sweet Tooth” made an impression as it dealt with body image issues with grace and sensitivity.
On the other hand, “Da Boyz” wasn’t as immediately noteworthy to me. The first minute or so featured junior Rafay Ali and Hansen as insightful himbo bodybuilder podcast hosts Jaxon and Gunner (yes, I’m aware that’s a mouthful) talking about typical himbo bodybuilder podcast host podcast topics (gains and bulking strategies). However, while I was on the precipice of tuning out, the conversation turned from one with obvious bravado into a much more thoughtful one about male mental health, with Gunner and Jaxon spouting statistics about male suicide rates and the impact of toxic masculinity on men. More interesting to me than the actors’ maturity, with Hansen and Ali making it clear to the audience when to laugh and when to not, was the subject matter and their approach to it; I would willingly listen to Gunner and Jaxon discuss the issues of the day. Alas, all good things must come to an end and, as the two men embraced each other, the show came to a close, tying a neat and hopeful bow on the production.
Initially, I was only slightly impressed by the show but as time went on my appreciation grew. Despite the students’ obvious talent, the limited time the class had to work on the production sacrificed aesthetic value in favor of other elements of the show. However, that’s not to say this was a bad choice: the simplicity of props and costumes had an endearing charm to it. I chuckled at a makeshift jail cell made out of a metal clothing rack with chains suspended vertically from it. Besides, I’m not going to remember what Gunner and Jaxon’s podcast set-up looked like, but I’ll remember their foolishly intelligent commentary on gender norms.
Look, I’ll level with whoever’s reading this review: for some time, it was difficult for me to write an honest review that wasn’t just a play-by-play of the entire production. Some scenes I chose to omit from this article simply because they hit too close to home (I’d like to simply stick to experiencing my intrusive thoughts instead of having to think about them and see them personified on a stage, thank you very much). All this to say that it was much easier to praise “strong writing” and “strong performances” than it was to have to reflect on why the writing was strong, or why the performances were so impactful.
Sometimes, it’s too much to think about this sort of stuff at all. For this reason, we cast aside these difficult conversations, call them cringe and do anything to avoid the discomfort that comes with talking about mental illness. But what if we didn’t have to? What if all we had to do instead of talking is watch? Listen?
I ask this question knowing that everyone’s comfort levels vary. Maybe you know someone dealing with mental illness; maybe you yourself do. This show has the potential to be triggering, and I’m not presumptuous enough to say that this show is a must-see for everyone (you might not be there yet, and that’s okay!) AND it was a genuinely well-intended attempt at addressing a silent disease running rampant through our school community. Personally, I don’t at all regret how I spent my Friday evening.
