Elizabeth Kenny's Sick: Side Effects May Include...

Humanity has always had a love/hate relationship with doctors and the pills they prescribe. Because they've centered their lives around studying the human body and its frailties, we trust them to give us advice and make decisions in our behalf about what's best for our bodies. It isn't a complete trust, sometimes we refuse to follow instructions -- it is our body, after all, and what does the doctor know, anyway?

This impulse to rebel has deteriorated over time, however. The advancements made in pharmaceutical science are too great in number, too broad in scope; barring an incurable disease or ailment, if there's a physical or emotional issue at play, quite likely there is a pill that could be prescribed to alleviate it. There are many problems associated with these scientifically heady times, and a free market, deregulated atmosphere does nothing to help them. Drug companies are too eager to put a product out to the public; there's also no way for that public to keep abreast of the various positive and negative effects the drugs can have. What's worse is that, often, the doctors who are prescribing these pills seem to be little more informed about these effects than the patients they are supposed to be helping.

These are but a few of the issues explored in Sick, Elizabeth Kenny's new solo play, which is being produced by Shady Lane Productions at New City Theater. Kenny's show makes a compelling case for revisiting the procedures surrounding prescription medicine in the US. It does this by virtue of an approach that is at once restrained and entirely relatable.

Her story is simple: After a gynecologist prescribed a birth control pill in order to alleviate pain associated with ovarian cysts, Kenny experienced a profound bout of depression. This wasn't an expected effect from the drug, so the gynecologist suggested she go to see a psychiatrist, who, after a brief and rudimentary session, proclaimed her to be depressed and prescribed Paxil, in order to alleviate the problem...

By sticking with the empirical facts of her story, Kenny neatly sidesteps any charges of undue subjectivity that could be leveled against her. Without doubt, this is purely her story, and there isn't any other point of view given during the run of the show; but by avoiding the more lurid, exploitative aspects of her ordeal, Kenny achieves a muted, intellectual catharsis. She is aided in this endeavor by Tina Kunz Rowley, who's listed in the program as Kenny's "accompanist."

A neutral presence on the stage, Rowley performs the key role of conductor for the evening. Armed with a stopwatch and a bell, Rowley ensures that Kenny does not stray too far off topic, or get lost in an emotional reverie. After the bell has rung, she draws a note card upon which is written a word, or a brief phrase ("Ted", "Ladders", "Smoking", "Doc Martin's") that she reads aloud to Kenny, who then uses that as a launching point into the next part of the show. Because there isn't a set script, this means that Kenny has to then incorporate the story beats associated with the card on the spot.

This method ensures that no two shows will ever be the same, which is intriguing because the material is so rich and complex, one can't help but wonder what it is one is missing. It can also be humorously frustrating, as often the bell seems to arrive just as Kenny has gotten her hooks into a story. This serves one of the thematic devices of Sick, namely that Kenny, while she was taking the increasingly potent prescriptions, never felt able to connect with herself. She felt alienated from her own being, this feeling is conveyed by the fragmentary nature of the anecdotes.

This isn't a hard and fast rule, during the performance this correspondent watched, there were a number of instances when the bell rung and Kenny broke with convention in order to contextualize what she had been recently talking about. This places an emphasis on the additional information, things that cannot and should not be readily dismissed.

Director John Kazanjian, who collaborated with Kenny in the creation of this project, takes care to keep things balanced; together they present a detailed sketch of Kenny's life before, during and after the chemically induced madness that serves as the center of the story; and what a story. Among the maladies our narrator undergoes on the way to figure out the exact nature of her maladies: Headaches so severe, the only cure she could conceive of is banging her head against a brick wall; bingeing on tequila, anti-depressants and other illicit drugs in order to feel "normal;" auditory hallucinations, the most pervasive of which is a disembodied voice that discusses Russian literature.

The most touching aspect of all of this is Kenny's relationship with her mother, herself a psychologist, who recognized that whatever it is her daughter's going through, it wan't a biological, or natural, occurrence. Among the more maddening is the cycle of taking a new medication, which leads to its adverse reaction, which leads to a new, more dire diagnosis, which leads to a new, stronger medication.

Sick is quite an accomplishment, and comes at a time when the medical institution seems open to hearing from those affected by their practices (as evidenced during a late performance anecdote regarding a panel Kenny spoke at). In turns humorous, haunting, and frightening, it is always honest and direct. One hopes that if people who work in the pharmacological industry are listening, they are actually also hearing the message being shared.

Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m., through April 30 EXTENDED through June 18 // New City Theater's Shoebox, 1404 18th Avenue // $20 in advance - $25 at the door