The weighty responsibility of portraying a character with schizophrenia is something Tom Conroy feels keenly. That he is portraying a real person in the Belvoir St Theatre’s current production, Tell Me I’m Here, adapted from Anne Deveson’s bestselling memoir of the same name, only makes it more important that he gets it right.
Conroy plays Deveson’s son, Jonathan Blain, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager and eventually died of a drug overdose at the age of 24. Photographs of Blain adorn Conroy’s dressing room mirror.
