Shrink rap

Many questions remain in the realm of mental health. What constitutes "mad," for example? What’s the difference between mental illness and eccentricity? Stability and instability? Dysfunctional and dangerous? Given the range of human emotions and the dysfunctions that exist, what exactly is "normal"? These ideas are explored in Joe Penhall’s Blue/Orange.

In the great tradition of plays and movies set in and around mental institutions like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Snake Pit and Girl, Interrupted, Blue/Orange is a standout drama. The Interact Theatre production is also an exhilarating experience.

This play rings alarm bells regarding the public’s concern about schizophrenics and other sorts of deranged people who have murdered or attacked strangers after being released to so-called care in the community. How do psychiatrists assess who should be freed and on what basis of certainty? Blue/Orange does not directly answer such questions.

Set against the backdrop of a crumbling National Health Service in Britain, Penhall’s edgy play examines the unspoken politics of institutions, challenges assumptions about "normality" and questions whether "sanity" is dependent on the color of your skin. This sharply written piece covers buzzword psychiatry, economic expediency in the healthcare industry, medical egotism and culturally ingrained racism.

Penhall negotiates the potentially explosive subject matter and relishes the absurdity of a situation driven as much by self-interest as noble intention. He is remarkably acute on the workings of abnormal psychology and of professional psychiatrists, and also has a wonderfully keen sense of the basic psychological makeup of each character and the relationships they form with each other.

The South African native spent time working with chronic schizophrenics in California and has caught the dilemma of this extreme form of human consciousness with a fine ear. He served his writing apprenticeship as a local newspaper reporter.

In the psychiatric unit featured in Blue/Orange, Christopher is an Afro-British patient who has been committed for a 28-day assessment. We meet him on his 27th day and on the following morning as he demands his release. Christopher not only thinks that he’s the son of African dictator Idi Amin, but sees oranges as being colored blue. Dr. Bruce Flaherty, a compassionate young psychiatrist, distrusts the official diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. He believes Christopher is schizophrenic, vulnerable and in need of further hospitalization. He asks his mentor, senior consultant Dr. Robert Smith, for an opinion. Robert, a pragmatic and ambitious man of superficial culture, confirms the original diagnosis and orders Bruce to discharge the patient. A clash over race, class, culture and the politics of mental illness ensues.

What begins as a level-headed professional dispute becomes an increasingly heated battle of wills, stoked by egotism and office politics. Penhall brilliantly constructs the dialogue so that our own allegiances are continually tested: Is Christopher paranoid and unstable because he’s mentally ill, or because he’s part of an oppressed minority, his behavior the product of racism? Does he see the oranges he’s handed as blue because he’s deranged or because that’s his way of coping with being, as it were, a different color?

Each of the men is both appealing and appalling. They are right and wrong at different times and in different ways, maintaining the ambiguity of their motives and positions throughout.

This professional disagreement escalates, moving rapidly from a difference about diagnosis to a deep antagonism bound up with self-image, self-interest and obsession. Instead of being interested in Chris’ well being, the two doctors use him as a pawn in the battle between them. It becomes hard to see how these ordinary but increasingly unstable people can make judgments about the young man in their care.

Blue/Orange offers emotional, intellectual and moral excitement, but the compelling performances of Johnnie Hobbs, Scott Greer and Tim Moyer make this production a unique experience and superb entertainment. The give-and-take between these three actors is extraordinary in its range and control of dynamics.

Greer is marvelous as the young doctor – a nervous employee outranked and outmaneuvered. Moyer is outstanding as the senior shrink, moving from apparent affability to ferocious megalomania. He packs the emperor-sized ego of Robert with gesture, mannerism and panache.

As the schizophrenic patient, Hobbs brilliantly portrays a streetwise yet lonely and alienated youth who struggles with his inner demons. He dances electrically on the edge of madness.

In this co-production with The Act II Playhouse, Seth Rozin’s direction is a tremendous asset. Given the density of the script – the clinical analogies and debates – it could have become fairly dry psychobabble in other hands. Here, every movement is specific and the characterizations are so engrossing that you might not even realize that the second hand of the clock on Thom Bumblauskas’ set continues to advance but the time never changes.

The idea of psychologists taking advantage of their power isn’t new. Nonetheless, one shivers to think that the last person in the world we want to mess up our head is the entrusted person who should be helping it. With this in mind, Blue/Orange is certainly more than just a loaded oxymoron.

Blue/Orange raises many important questions about humanity and what we label as insanity. It leaves most of them unanswered, but its purpose is in the asking. The result is an intense, fascinating night of theater that will leave you talking about the characters and situation for days afterward.

Blue/Orange
Through June 19
Interact Theatre Company
2030 Sansom St.
Tickets: $14-$25
215-568-8079
www.interracttheatre.org