mental illness

Richard Lett: Sober But Never Clean - Bravery, Humility and Pure Creative Spark

What I expected was stand-up, with a definite nod to the 12 steps of recovery, as so many comics before have been through. What I didn’t expect was original songs, wrenched from the gut slam poetry forged in bodily fluids and the feverish imaginings of a person scraping through the mud, and tales of comrades on the same campaign, struggling with the same demons, searching for those angels of their better nature. Richard Lett has been a moderately successful stand-up comic for several decades, but like so many performers, courage, creativity and reactions came supercharged from external chemical changes. Not...

September 13th, 2016 · By Bruce M. Campbell

Read the full review...

Marrow – A Witch's Perspective on Mental Illness and Feminism

Two sisters, Morgan (played by Alexandra Lainfesta) and Maura (Baraka Rahmani) explore their tensions, traumas, and failures in an atmospheric and heart-wrenching performance with a very strong presence of cheesecake. Maura is a university dropout using kickboxing to find her way through a difficult recovery from an eating disorder. Morgan is a successful academic writing a thesis on the Salem witch trials. Exploring their unresolved tensions between one another and with their parents, Lainfesta and Rahmani give a very convincing and touching portrayal of the way that siblings love and hate as only siblings can.

The production makes very strong...

September 11th, 2016 · By Kit Martens

Read the full review...

Brain - Moving and Intense

After watching “Brain” a one-man show - written and performed by Brendan McCleod, I felt like I’d gotten a tangible glimpse into the mind of someone with OCD. It’s an intense play that is touching, funny, and deeply vulnerable.

Author of the one person show “The Big Oops”, the novel "The Convictions of Leonard McKinley” and the monologue “The Fruit Machine”, McCleod is known as a writer and spoken word artist. His play "Brain" is a well constructed and compelling story that takes remarkable emotional risks and goes deep.