Guest Blog: Amit Lahav and Ezra Hewing On Mental Health and INSTITUTE

Gecko's Artistic Director Amit Lahav and the Head of Mental Health Education at Suffolk Mind, Ezra Hewing, have teamed up to produce a series of mental health workshops and discussions running alongside Gecko's autumn tour of 'Institute', which begins at Manchester HOME tonight. The play follows four characters as they struggle to prepare themselves to leave treatment. Amit and Ezra explain how important it is for theatre to be tackling this subject.

"When the time comes, will anyone really care?"

Amit: We are entering a time in which we are increasingly more fractured and disconnected. We are losing our ability to read - and therefore protect and care for - one another. Institute is driven by our desire to explore complexities in human nature: our impulse to care and our complete reliance on each other. We've created a very intimate, funny and revealing experience in Gecko's physical, honest and generous style. A world where everyone relies on someone to catch them.

Gecko first began to develop Institute back in 2012. Driven by an interest in the idea of care, we explored its role within modern society and the notion that care is now political currency, spoken about in the media every day. In early 2013, we invited a select panel of inspirational artists, support workers, patients and carers from various fields to explore a range of themes and relationships relating to care. The rich findings of that extraordinary initial development, and the personal stories that emerged, fuelled Institute.

Gecko's shows are intended to act as provocation to the audience, encouraging a personal response and asking each audience member to place themselves within the show. Upon initially touring Institute, we discovered that some audience members were feeling a very personal and profound response to the show. This led to numerous conversations about their own experiences of care and mental health.

Despite workshopping the show with three male and one female performers, I ultimately decided to use four male performers, as I wanted to explore the care mechanisms between men. This decision raised interesting questions of masculinity and strength versus fragility. We realised that this was a great opportunity to have additional activities that could explore the themes raised during the show, using experts from the mental health field who could offer more substantial support than us.

That's when we began to work with Suffolk Mind. With support from the Wellcome Trust, Associate Director Helen Baggett, Ezra and I developed a programme of activities that address the issues raised in Institute, but also stresses that a strong understanding of mental health is an essential part of our shared human experience.

Ezra: We always know when our physical needs for food, drink or sleep must be satisfied, because we feel hunger, thirst or tiredness. However, most of us find it much harder to tell when our emotional needs have to be met.

Our emotional needs include: security - a need to feel safe where we live, work or study; control - to feel that we have some say over our lives and personal choices; attention - like physical nutrition, too much and too little is bad for us; emotional connection; community - feeling that we are connected to our wider society; respect; privacy; achievement; and purpose.

While women are more likely to experience common mental health problems like anxiety or depression, men are three times more likely to attempt suicide. Statistics from the Office for National Statistics show that suicide is the leading cause of death amongst men aged 20 to 34. Men are also less likely to seek help, either from their GP or from mental health services.

A common explanation for this is that men are often reluctant to talk about mental health issues for fear of being seen as weak or 'unmanly'. It's thought that stereotypes telling men society expects them to 'man up' and get on with life when they are distressed prevents them from seeking help or telling people how they feel.

However, there is also evidence that shows men and women's brains are 'wired' to cope with stress differently. In general, a man's natural approach to coping with strong feelings may be to try to 'keep the brakes on' intense emotion, while seeking a practical solution to the perceived cause. In other words, men are wired to problem solve.

Helping men with mental health issues might therefore be more effective if we take this into account. For men, 'doing' something about a problem and not just 'talking' about how they feel might be a more appealing way of seeking help with their mental health.

It's the view at Suffolk Mind that with the stresses and pressures of our everyday lives, there is a need to have a better knowledge of how to protect our mental health and understand what people are going through as they live with mental ill health. Gecko's incredible physical theatre work, and the international renown they have garnered, provides a powerful medium for achieving that.

Institute is at HOME Manchester 19-22 October, Nuffield Southampton 2-5 November and Liverpool Everyman Playhouse 16-19 November

Photo credit: Farrows Creative

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