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Girl, Interruption can seem like an impossible thing for musicians. Based on the best-selling 1993 memoir by Susanna Kaysen, the small volume chronicles the author’s nearly two-year stay in a mental hospital in the late 1960s. Public Theatre and a cast that includes Tony nominee Juliana Canfield Stereophonic artist, like Susanna is a pop star King Princessin her first role, as Lisa.
Although the theatrical interpretation is based on the memoir, James Mangold’s 1999 film version, in which he stars. Winona Ryder as Susanna is Angelina Jolie in an Oscar-winning drama like Lisa, it will probably be as big in the minds of the audience as it was in the actors.
“I was a very type A teenager and it was interesting to see other teenagers doing things in a way that felt far from what I thought I was allowed to do,” says Canfield. “The film was like a license to admit that I was struggling with things; it was very frustrating for me.”
The show was started by Angelica Zollo, one of the show’s producers, who discovered Girl Troubled as a teenager. He was among the many readers who saw themselves in the plight of the characters; the book became an international bestseller and spawned many articles about girls and mental illness. Zollo later brought the idea of change to his parents, both designers; his mother, Barbara Broccoli, ruled James Bond franchise for many years. For music, Zollo saw Aimee Mann, whose sultry and sinister singing earned her an Oscar nomination for her musical career. Paul Thomas AndersonMagnolia is. After the pandemic halted production, Mann released his own recorded music as the soundtrack to the 2021 Queens of the Summer Hotel. (Although Mann’s music is being produced, he is no longer acting.)
In 2017, a theater group approached Martyna Majok, a playwright, after seeing her Pulitzer Prize-winning play. The Price of Life. (Girl, Disturbed reunites Majok with Jo Bonney, the director.) Majok saw the movie “years, years ago” but had never read the book. “I was drawn to Susanna’s voice, her wit, her perspective, and her beautiful sadness,” she said.
Girl, Disturbed is a non-linear novel as Kaysen reflects on her childhood and the length of time. He adds perspective and contrast to his account by including medical notes. These stylistic choices presented challenges. Kaysen “wrote in great detail. He’s strong, but there’s not much,” says Majok. “We had to figure out how to create a compelling piece of theater while honoring the memories and what makes the memoir so special.” Kaysen is not involved in the production, but has blessed him. Majok said: “They wanted us to make it ourselves.”
Majok chose to create the play as a memoir that alternates between the older and younger Susanna’s thoughts. The visual representation captures the minimalism of corporate culture and the invisible past. There is a rotating platform that brings to mind a nurse’s station that can be raised or lowered in place where there are elevated platforms. Limited amenities include chairs, cots and a piano. “There was a dance between them and what they had to teach each other,” says Majok. Susanna, 38, is looking for something to help her move forward in her life. As revealed in the memoir, Kaysen learned of his borderline personality disorder 25 years after his discharge.
When 18-year-old Kaysen checked herself into McLean after a suicide attempt, she was “very scared and in denial that she needed help”, says Canfield. “Throughout the play, she finds friendship and camaraderie with other struggling girls.” Canfield spends the entire show on stage and the material often requires him to quickly transition from a tense moment to a calm, human emotion. “The old Susanna is free from the difficult emotional place that the young Susanna often finds herself in,” he says. “It’s this little horse that helps. I go to places that are dark or dangerous, and then the drama asks me to leave for a while.”
The adaptation focuses on five female patients: Tori, an amphetamine addict from Mexico; Daisy, OCD and possibly sexually abused; Polly, a schizophrenic; and Grace, Susanna’s roommate who has two characters in the memoir. And there’s Lisa, a sexist who has “sexual ideas that transcend gender”, according to the King Princess, who watched jaguar videos with Marc Bolan, the glam rocker, to develop her body. “He’s a predator, he sneaks around, hips-forward, forward.” The “male presence” and three women working for McLean surround the players.
The show’s classic music resonates as the girls visit the hospital and chat late at night about McLean’s patients such as poets Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath. Several players playing instruments sit, and the actors, mostly sit on the stage, join together as a chorus. Sonya Tayeh’s choreography, a Tony winner, is similarly understated and involves a rotating part. Although the story is heavy – suicide, electrotherapy and mental illness among them – there are happy moments, like when Lisa throws a catatonic birthday party. Two hours without intermission fly by, although the singing is so entertaining that the audience will wish they could stay longer.
King Princess remembers the random moments when she watched the movie as a teenager. King Princess said: “I felt like I was watching something in secret. “For me, the movie was difficult because of the kissing.” (With) Angie and Winona’s relationship, I was like, ‘Oh, this is a gay movie,’ and I went with it. The change has its own moment, although the story is very different from the time when the film was released among the patients.
Although the discussion around mental health has changed significantly since this book was created and published, its issues remain relevant today. “I think it’s more important than it was 10 years ago because of the oppressive words about non-men in the world, and what we are or aren’t allowed to do,” said the King Princess. “Our government officials have the same mindset as the male doctors in the 60’s, they sound right in our words!”
King Princess also draws parallels between young women being intimidated watching the Vietnam War and police intervention in protests today. “You exchange a single color TV in the common room of our phones, it’s the same,” he says, “It’s a matter of finding people in a strange place, and that’s what we’re dealing with now, in a very dark history.”
In the end, the story of a young person finding a place in the world remains coherent and meaningful. “It’s always difficult to travel as a teenager, no matter what time you’re in. There are so many questions, and it feels like so few answers,” says Canfield. “Girl, Disruption is a constant reminder that you are not alone in this battle.”
