Playwright: Joe Penhall
At: Actors Revolution Theatre at the Victory Gardens Greenhouse, 2257 N. Lincoln
Contact: ( 773 ) 871-3000; $12 - $20
Runs through: Jan. 20
BY CATEY SULLIVAN
But for the most extreme cases, mental illness is in the eye of the beholder. As for psychiatry, unless you're physically measuring the likes of serotonin output, it's about an exact a science as impressionist painting.
That's a reality MDs often shun; by training, doctors are all about clear definitions and diagnosis. It's a fact and not a sweeping generalization to assert that the medical field, as a rule, abhors the uncertain, ambiguous slipperiness that comes with such amorphous but administratively necessary labels as 'borderline personality disorder.'
In Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange, white physicians Bruce ( Jeff Radue ) and Robert ( Gerard Dedera ) tussle intensely over the treatment needed ( or not ) by a charismatic, enigmatic young 'Afro-Caribbean' in-patient named Christopher ( Chris Lamberth ) . Is Christopher 'nuts' and in need of hospitalization? Or does his behavior just seem crazy because Bruce, who is white, is applying standards that are alien to a culture that's foreign to him?
Director Jessica Jackson has assembled a cracking-fine cast and works at a brisk, invigorating pace in the Actors Revolution Theatre production.
Penhall's play is not without flaws. It requires a ludicrous degree of suspension of disbelief when Bruce and Robert get into repeated, viciously personal arguments over Christopher's diagnosis right in front of their patient. Moreover, Blue/Orange is overwritten. Penhall goes into unnecessary overtime with every provocative point he brings up, launching 20-minute discourses that could be halved and still retain their potency.
Even so, Penhall raises enough fiery, disquieting dilemmas in Blue/Orange to make for three intensely worthwhile acts. And with strong, lucid performances and a keen sense of urgency, the Actors Revolution cast delivers a bristling, intriguing story.
It begins on the final day of Christopher's court-mandated time in a psych ward. Christopher sees oranges as blue rather than orange, and has some fanciful, possibly delusional thoughts about his parentage and his neighbors, but he seems no more crazed than anybody you'd encounter walking around on the 'outside.' Furthermore, he's not a threat to himself or others—thus falling outside the gold standard of criteria for having somebody committed.
Even so, Bruce wants to keep Christopher in the hospital so he can plumb the patient's more unusual ideas further. Robert wants to discharge Christopher.
As the doctors get into an increasingly high-stakes and bitter debate over Christopher's fate, all of the utterly non-medical rationales that play into treating the mentally ill come to the fore. Christopher's treatment has as much to do with the hospital politics, power struggles and the personal ambitions of his physicians as it does with his state of mind and medical needs.
It's an illuminating, emotionally troubling struggle that exposes an aspect of the medical field that is as disquieting as it is inherently fraught with drama.