Actors bring the stories of their own mental illnesses to the stage

From The Orange County Register. In the picture, Danny Oberbeck asks audience members if they think he's crazy in "Third Tree from the Left", a play written and performed by people with mental illness playing at the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, Calif.

In high school, the punishing voices began to bombard Kymberli Kercher Smith's mind. She withdrew from most of her activities but not theater – she felt safe losing herself in a character.

When she finally let people know something was wrong, she was told to stop being so dramatic.

Finally, in her late 20s, Smith was hospitalized and diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a mix of hallucinations or delusions with mania or depression. She lost her marriage, jobs and, for a time, a place to live.

But on Saturday, Smith, 41, regained her place on the stage. She performed two shows in the Santa Ana Artists Village, this time proudly starring as Kymberli Kercher Smith in an original play about mental illness.

"Third Tree on the Left," directed by Don Laffoon of the nonprofit Stop-Gap theater company, stars a cast of Orange County residents who helped craft the dialogue based on their own experiences with depression, bipolar disorder and the stigma of being called crazy.

"I used to use my acting as a shell to hide my feelings or become someone totally different," Smith said. "Now I'm using it to be myself and share my feelings with other people."

Roughly 26 percent of American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Locally, in recent years, plays about Alzheimer's disease and AIDS have touched audiences in ways not possible with an academic lecture or stacks of literature in a doctor's office.

"If we're watching a stage presentation about something that maybe we're uncomfortable with, at least we can sit in a dark theater and try to open ourselves and not be defensive about it," Laffoon said. "We feel for the characters. It's not just intellectual. There's empathy involved."

In Smith's monologue, she spoke of the discouraging prognosis from doctors who told her she'd never work or maintain loving relationships. She explained the unpredictable turbulence of her mind losing focus.

But she also shared hope. The Fullerton resident frequently speaks at schools and volunteers with local advocacy groups.

"I saw for the first time in my life that I have potential," she told the audience. "I am not my diagnosis. I am so much more."

The play started with each cast member wearing a white mask, but ended with them shaking the hands of strangers seated in the audience.

Navarro Wenceslao attended the show with his mother because his sister has schizophrenia.

"Sometimes we are careless when it comes to other people with this sickness," said Wenceslao, 32, of Brea. "As a community we have to be aware. They don't need any more extra burdens on them."

The production was funded with a grant from Orange County Behavioral Health Services. Play rehearsals required working around doctor's appointments and medication schedules. Some of the actors read from their scripts during the performance because of memory loss from medication or electroconvulsive shock therapy.

Smith said she recited a few of her lines out of order, but she good by the time she took her final bow on a stage decorated with step ladders.

"I had a hard time doing the show, but I made it through," she said. "That's how I feel almost every day."