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On an otherwise sparse stage in a large, empty room, Katie Watkins sits on the ground, surrounded by a semicircle of more than two dozen lamps. The lights flicker on and off as the distant roar of a hundred whispers begins to build like a storm. She hugs her knees close to her body, her bare feet flexing and twitching. The tremors move out to her arms and into her hands, which form rigid claws. She stands in what looks like an attempt to run before buckling at the waist, her back and arms stiff, and releases a breathy, voiceless scream. It is terrifying, uncomfortable and hypnotic.
It may be impossible to convey what it feels like to be held hostage in your own mind—locked in the grip of mental illness. Even Watkins, whose new one-woman performance piece, Schizo, is about her brother Jeff's struggle against schizophrenia, makes no claims to truly understand what he has dealt with.
At age 11, Jeff was unusually young when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. While the disorder typically appears in patients during their early 20s, he spent his adolescence balancing medications, therapy, hospital stints and high school.
"Even though we know some of the things the voices have said to him, I would never presume to understand what he is really going through," said Watkins at the talk-back after her opening-night performance.
Watkins observed it all but says she's only now starting to discover how it affected her. "It was this thing that was always the center of attention, and yet we were never supposed to talk about it," she said. So for the past two years, she has been in the process of creating Schizo in an attempt to sort through her own emotions.
What Watkins created is a collage of movement, light and soundscapes, where she plays the role of Jeff based on how she observed him as they were growing up. What little dialogue there is comes in the form of phone messages discussing incidents at school, troubled relationships and whether Jeff's dad should hide the kitchen knives. Watkins gives a recitation of the myriad prescriptions given over the years, from Paxil and Zoloft to a potent cocktail of antipsychotics. A particularly haunting song describes all the ways Jeff could kill himself if he really wanted to—from household poison to a tin-can lid.
Jeff, now 24, wonât be attending the performance, because heâs starting school and pursuing a bioscience technology degree at Georgia Gwinnett College. âBut I do have his blessing,â said Watkins, whose short but provocative performance proves an effective vehicle for illustrating a topic that is often ignored. âIt was my experience too.â
SEE IT: Schizo is at Shaking the Tree Theatre, 823 SE Grant St., 235-0635. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, through Aug. 29. $15.
WWeek 2015