Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a long-term mental health condition that causes a range of different psychological symptoms, including: 

• hallucinations - hearing or seeing things that do not exist
• delusions - unusual beliefs not based on reality which often contradict the evidence
• muddled thoughts based on the hallucinations or delusions
• changes in behaviour

Doctors often describe schizophrenia as a psychotic illness. This means sometimes a person may not be able to distinguish their own thoughts and ideas from reality.

Read more about the symptoms of schizophrenia.

Why does schizophrenia happen?

The exact cause of schizophrenia is unknown. However, most experts believe the condition is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

It is thought certain things make you more vulnerable to developing schizophrenia, and certain situations can trigger the condition.

Read more about the causes of schizophrenia.

Who is affected?

Schizophrenia is one of the most common serious mental health conditions. About 1 in 100 people will experience schizophrenia in their lifetime, with many continuing to lead normal lives.

Schizophrenia is most often diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 35. Men and women are equally affected.

There is no single test for schizophrenia. It is most often diagnosed after an assessment by a mental health care professional, such as a psychiatrist.

It is important that schizophrenia is diagnosed as early as possible, as the chances of recovery improve the earlier it is treated.

Taken from: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Schizophrenia/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Evaluation of Performance

On the 20th December 2013 we, the Anarchy Arts performance company, performed our production of Sarah Kane's 'Psychosis 4.48'. Overall I think the show was a success; there wasn't any mistakes and for our first production as a full company, I think it ran smoothly and we all worked well together.

Prior to the show, I was worried because Liam McMorrow had been in Belgium for a week and so had missed a week of rehearsals, he is in the majority of scenes and alone, leads the Pina Bausch choreography. However when he came back, on the day of the show, he, and everyone else, was focused on rehearsing on scenes that needed it most and more so as an ensemble and so the show went fine.

I really enjoyed the scene after the Pina choreography were my character was tied to a bungee cord and ran the audience screaming for help; this scene wasn't rehearsed too much and so had a rawness to it which made it more exciting for me as an actor, I never became bored of doing it. Furthermore, it allowed me to explore a completely different side of my character described in his profile by 'increasing signs of schizophrenia'. Although when we performed, when being pulled back, I think I stepped on one of the audience members foot but had to go on with the show and so apologised after the show.
I also liked that we decided to sit the audience within the set; it was abstract, which reflects the style of our show, and really brought the audience into the show.

If we were to repeat the show's process again I would have like to have been able to rehearse the tooth brushing scene, it was decided we would perform it just hours before the show however I believe it went well and from hearing feedback from the audience, it was effective and the toothpaste ran down our face and stayed there throughout the show.

Character Profile

      Name: Edward Nigma
                  Enigma
         Age: Late twenties-Early thirties
Symptoms: -Boredom
                 -No interest in anything
                 -No sexual desires (Asexual)
                 -Increasing signs of schizophrenia

Edward has no sense of 'maybe my mind's playing tricks on me' and so follows his every thought; his mind has taken full control of body and soul.

Writing in role

I have become bored with life and just plainly dissatisfied with everything...people, places, hobbies...sex. I used to know why I got this way, but my memories, they just seem so, so pointless. and I do want to have a life, I assume I did before, I want friends but I get so bored, it's like I can't even get past the 'how are you's.

12/11/13

Today we rehearsed the Pina choreography, created yesterday, before sectioning off and actioning the script. To an extent, this really annoyed me; where the script is so plain with little direction and so I had, when reading through the script, I thought out how I'd like each scene to be performed and so when others did scenes their way, it annoyed me alittle, not that the scenes wasn't good in the ways that the other actors performed them, it just each has so much potential and could have been performed in so many different ways. I'm sure, or atleast I'd like to think, the other actors feel the same.

11/11/13

During today's lesson, we explored a section of choreography created by Pina Bausch in her show 'Rite of Spring'. Through adapting her work to meet the needs of our own show, I began to further feel and see the positive effects of the exhaustion technique, although not as far to the extent as the effects were when we explored Pina and this technique, however I can see the effects being much more powerful in the final show as we discussed placing this scene somewhere around the middle of our show 'Psychosis 4.48'. Whilst rehearsing this choreography we used the same piece of music used in 'Rite of Spring' which I feel doesn't suit our show as it's quite natural where our piece is more Artaudian and so I think we need something abit more upbeat but unheard of.

Sarah Kane 4.48

Now ya see, I really like this script.
Even though some may call it sick and twisted, I think it's amazing, it shows pure human emotions. Sarah would have never expected anyone to read these, notes, and so was raw and honest and so for me the script shows a clear insight into another human's mind, and it makes me feel that much more normal; and though I recognise it's strange I call it normal when she was labelled a 'psychopath', what can we define as normal? I think she was fine, despise suffering insomnia and depression, her thoughts were purely human, yet she had no motive for life and in my eyes, that was her downfall.

Picture Collage