Schizophrenia Daily News Blog

Theatrical Play on Schizophrenia - "When Time Collapses"

There is a very well-recieved new play that is being performed in the UK and Canada that is focused on schizophrenia. We recommend NAMI chapters (as well as Schizophrenia Society chapters in Canada) bring the play to their cities as an educational fund-raising opportunity.

The play is titled "When Times Collapses", and is a powerful play about a teenager's lead-up to his first experience of psychosis. Reviewers have described it as a groundbreaking new play about one family's experiences of schizophrenia. "When Time Collapses" explores the difficulties experienced as a result of the disease, but also offers hope on managing schizophrenia.

The first scene shows the family dealing with the consequences of the illness when the sufferer has not been given the appropriate treatment. The second scene shows how it can be treated effectively.

The play was written by Polly Wright with the help of Dr. David Shiers and Dr. Fiona Macmillan, from the National Institute of Mental Health in England (NIMHE).

One reviewer had this to say about the play:

Annita Wahab is impressed by a theatre play as a means of bringing schizophrenia to centre stage

Even though I am familiar with the established explanation of mental health that everyone lies somewhere on a continuum of good to poor mental health, and our position on this continuum changes, I somehow always felt that I would never be affected by a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia.

But after seeing "When Times Collapses", a powerful play about a teenager’s lead-up to his first experience of psychosis, my mind is irrevocably changed. Maybe it was the striking way that the behaviour of the teenager, Martin (impressively played by Dan Hagley), in the early stages of his illness was the same as any other adolescent – staying in his smelly room all the time and not getting dressed – or perhaps it was the incredibly moving way that real parents who have children with schizophrenia spoke about their experiences after the play.

I am now left feeling that there must be a fine line between a state of desperate depression which is generally accepted that anyone might feel and the freefall into hearing tormenting voices and experiencing hallucinations, a state that we feel happens only to other people.

Sharing my thoughts after seeing the play with psychotherapist, co-founder and former director of Young Minds, Peter Wilson, he confirmed: “Mental health and mental illness and disorder are all on a continuum. The dividing line is thin for all of us one way or another. And we all go through good and bad times in our lives and pretty well anything can happen.”

Read the Full review here: "When Times Collapses" review

(Special thanks to Dan for pointing this news out to us!)