It seems no matter how far human ingenuity extends, the workings of the mind remain stubbornly opaque. Neuroscience can tell us a great deal about the way our brains function but consciousness itself – our sense of identity and creativity, our personality and proclivity, our very notion of self – is to some extent utterly mysterious. And that’s before we consider the complications that come from mental illness. How can we calm, control and regulate what we barely understand?
Kendall Feaver’s award-winning debut play, The Almighty Sometimes, doesn’t shy away from the wondrous and frightening unknowability of the mind, even as it explores the fraught and complex issues around mental health diagnosis and treatment. Its central character is a young woman, Anna (Max McKenna), who has a serious mental illness for which she has been taking medication from the age of 11. She’s now an adult, which means everything is changing.
