The Right Regrets

For this post, the Artistic Director of our company and writer of Down and Out Nic Miller takes the helm, explaining why writing about self-harm and anxiety is such a fraught issue:

Myself directing during the staged reading

When first writing Down and Out in 2013, it never occurred to me that this could be an education and awareness piece. I wrote it following the classic 'Write about something you know' advice, as my first play dealt with issues well out of my sphere. It therefore started as a play looking at how Self-harm influenced a relationship, mainly with a view to considering the feelings of the person who was trying to help someone going through self-harm.

The play, with a few variations, generally stayed that way throughout its existence until the staged reading of it in November. At this point, it then started to take on the possibility of a different message, a new aim; to raise more general self-harm based discussion. And so within a number of re-writes this was heavily considered and the play was altered accordingly.

So when we come to perform it in a little over a weeks time I hope that the people who come to see the show will understand what this piece is about. It doesn't aim to offer a solution, or cure to self-harm, it aims to start a discussion in a public forum about self-harm, depression, anxiety and mental health more generally. And so to start with I'd like to discuss the portrayal of self-harm and related issues more generally.

A few weeks ago Channel 4 showed a 'documentary' titled My Self-harm Nightmare which took interviews from a number of young girls (Another issue I'll come to in a moment) about their experiences with eating disorders and self-harm. The programme has been widely discredited as unhealthy and a number of organisations have recommended against using it in any context as a PSHE resource due to its graphic nature. It also appeared to show self-harm in a relatively positive light, using only the views of the girls and doing little in the way of offering any sort of alternative or help. It also focused solely on female victims, an issue that is ever present in depression related portrayal. And the only regret I have in writing Down and Out is that the person who suffers in it is female.

For too long mental health has remained one of the final taboo subjects in both the public domain and theatre, not because it is wrong in any way, but because people don't see it as something that affects them or they do not know how to talk about it. Down and Out wants to bring the discussion to the level at which the public feels they can openly discuss it.

Our actors in rehearsal

However this means the play has drawn some criticism in its current on-the-page state, with some people describing it as 'One dimensional' and ' superficial' and I'd like to talk about how these are actually more damaging to the cause then if the play was that, and in what way these claims show a misinterpretation of the play, but also a positive outlook on the work as well.

To show the millions of different, individual and unique cases of self-harm, depression and anxiety in a single play is to some extent an impossible task that even the greatest dramatists would struggle with. What the play I've written aims to do is present one case, and let the audiences reaction to that feed the discussion about mental health. It is very much a case of taking Brecht's quote that 'Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it'. Down and Out doesn't want to show the world a shallow view of self-harm through one case, it wants to give a stimulus to start conversation. And surely if people are seeing the play as a one sided view from approaching it incorrectly it shows the play is succeeding; people are questioning self-harm and its portrayal, the work to improving the lives of sufferers can begin.

The promotional poster

If you are coming to watch Down and Out I hope you will remember it is based as much on a number of personal testimonies as it is on medical research, it is not a scientific document and it is not an attempted cure. It is a piece of theatre, a story to show people the dangers of a modern issue that needs discussing. There are sections that are poeticised or comic, but they are not to downplay the seriousness or to try and beautify the concept of someone harming themselves, they are theatrical tools to give the audience a more personal view of the issues shown and to remind them that these things happen in what are otherwise perfectly normal scenarios in a world. Where surrounding those who struggle there are still moments of joy, comedy, poeticism, misunderstanding and stereotyping that do not go away just because there are problems.This play doesn't attempt to be the be all and end all of self-harm discussion. It is just the start.



For tickets, feedback, questions or to get involved to the play email us at Triptychtheatreco@gmail.com