HOW would you diagnose Shakespeare’s characters today? Is Ophelia being “divided from herself and her fair judgement” really PTSD from her father’s death? Is Lady MacBeth’s suffering after King Duncan’s murder more than “thick-coming fancies/That keep her from her rest”?
That’s what Skye Loneragan asked herself when writing Though This Be Madness, her fragmented portrayal of motherhood, sisterhood and experience of loved ones’ debilitating mental illness.
The play opens with a recovering mum bouncing on a pilates ball, trying to soothe her baby so she can finish her sentence and share her story and tell us how she is unable to reach her sister Ophelia, who wrestles with a cataract on what Shakespeare calls the “mind’s eye”.
“It follows a mature aged recovering mother who is trying to get her baby to sleep so she can have a snatched moment to storytell,” Loneragan tells The National. “At the time, my loved ones were all going through shades of mental health and I was interested in how you’d diagnose Shakespeare’s female characters today.”
Loneragan said the way she wrote the show changed when she had a baby when it “became obvious that [she] couldn’t finish a sentence due to sleep deprivation” so she adopted a unique slow-touring concept which allows her to balance touring theatre alongside her responsibilities as a mother.
“Slow touring enables me not to be away from my own parenting world too many nights in a row, Loneragan explains. “It benefits my daughter but also me. We don’t have grandparents nearby who can help.
“It’s a bit of a risk because it’s not done like this normally – usually you build momentum by performing every night so it’s a risk but it’s what many parents are juggling with. Everyone is in very different childcare situations but for me it was very necessary.”
The show encourages babes in arms, one of few shows designed for adults that welcomes this, with morning performances alongside evening to suit time-poor adults.
“The show has adult content but I respond to what’s happening in the space,” Loneragan says. “A baby wanted to crawl on the stage in Aberdeen. I change the way I’m doing things to suit what’s going on around me. You can catch different episodes if you go out and come back in as it doesn’t have a beginning, middle and end.
“At the beginning I was scared to leave the house with my baby as she only slept if I walked with her on my body in a harness. You never know when they are going to nap. It’s really important that people feel really welcome to come as carers or parents and come and go as they need to.”
What’s live performance like after Covid? “It’s a strange time to be in,” Loneragan says. “I still feel a bit theatre shy. I don’t think it’s that easy to leave the house anymore. With Covid we have been through such a wringer and had to juggle different demands. It feels totally strange after the pandemic but it’s a huge joy to share something live in 3D with people.”
Told through poetry performance, with a musical score co-created by Mairi Campbell, the story has resonated with under-represented audiences, with one viewer telling Loneragan after the show it’s “depressingly rare something is for them and not anyone else”.
Another emailed in to say they like having space as someone caring for a loved one with a mental health condition.
“What the audience say after makes me realise there’s something valuable in this,” Loneragan says. “I would love to feel there’s space for those trying to make sense of people you love going through these things.”
Though This Be Madness will appear at the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival in Edinburgh this weekend (May 21 and 22). Tickets for the performance are available at capitaltheatres.com/whats-on/though-this-be-madness
The play will then travel to Heart of Hawick theatre on June 23, The Catstrand in Galloway on June 25, The Stove in Dumfries on June 26 and ends its initial run at Mull Theatre on July 14.
