Act I, Scene I opens by introducing the main characters, Lewis, his girlfriend Lucy and a friend of them, Nick. The three enters a badly damaged theater where they struggle to turn on the lights. Out of nowhere, a mentally ill man named Roy greets them and then Lewis, the caretaker of the mentally ill appears as well.
The play centers around a group of people composed of "normal’’ people and mentally ill people. The three characters in the beginning plan to put on a play with the help of the mental patients, at the initiative of Lewis.
Lewis is presented from the beginning as an extremely passionate and compassionate person. He makes sure the three see the mental patients as just humans and stresses the idea that even though a person may have psychological problems, that does not mean they are not precious human beings. The place where the actions take place is also important and worth analyzing.
The play opens in a ‘’burnt down’’ theater, an allusion made to the mental institutions of the time. While some people made great efforts to try and change the general idea about mental patients, the institution was run by people with old views who refused to change. This is suggested by the fact that the characters can’t turn on the light, an allusion made to the impossibility of bringing light on the matter and changing the general perspective.
The mental patients who will have a part in the play are introduced here as well, three men and three women. The men’s name are Dough, Henry and Zac but the play talks more about Dough, a pyromaniac who was sent to the institute after setting his mother’s cat on fire. The women are Julie, Cherry and Ruth and in comparison with the men, every woman has a condition associated with them, namely drug addiction, uncontrolled violence and obsessive-compulsive behavior.
Seeing the mental patients, Lewis starts to have doubts about the success of the production, showing thus how he has some prejudice against the mentally ill. Roy takes this moment to suggest the opera "Cosi Fan Tutte’’, a story about two men who decide to test their lovers. The men claim they are going to war but come back disguised as Albanian soldiers and start wowing the two women. After a while, the women agree to marry the two soldiers and then the men reveal their true identities.
What is important to note about this play is the refusal from the author to criticize the characters. Their flaws are seen as natural and because of this there are no resentment at the end of the play which has a happy ending, the two men and women getting married. The title of the opera is also important because it is translated ‘’This is what they’re like’’ an allusion which can be made towards the mentally ill patients who had no say in their illness.
The next scene becomes extremely chaotic towards the end. Lewis tries to find someone in the group who can sing but is unable to. Dough talks with Lewis about the way he ended up in a mental institution while Cherry flirts with Lewis and even feds him a sandwich.
At one point, Zac, the only person who knows how to play a music instrument, collapses and Dough rushes into the room, yells about a fire in an underground passage. Upon hearing this, Cherry lounges at him and tries to strangle him.
The image of normality created in the first scene disappears complete in the second one. It is replaced by a sense of uncertainty which reminds the readers that the six characters are mental patients and no matter how hard Lewis tries to convince the audience otherwise, they remain highly unstable and unpredictable.
The fire sets a number of unexpected chain or reactions into motion. When the patients are told they will no longer be allowed to have a role in the play, Cherry takes the responsibility for the fire even though she was not the one responsible. This is surprising especially when considering how uninterested everyone seemed in the beginning of the play.
Lewis interacts with another patient, this time with Julie, the drug addict. The two talk about Lewis’s relationship with Lucy and it is revealed that Lucy cares more about the Vietnam war that about Lewis. Another idea alluded in this scene is that men do not have a positive idea about women. Instead, men expect to be betrayed and disappointed by women and they have a sort of satisfaction when this happens.
This deep understanding from Julie proves that there are mental patients capable of living a fulfilling life despite their disease. There are others however, like Cherry, who appears once more force feeding Lewis, who does not understand the boundaries she should be respecting. Cherry’s instability also comes from her violent behavior, appearing here once more when Dough starts another fire and when Cherry pulls out a knife this time.
The third scene presents a conflict once more but this time between Lewis and Nick. After Dough was admitted to a closed ward, Lewis became more involved in the play and he saw real progress in the rest of the patients. He becomes a confident to some of the patients, in particular Julie, who talks to him about her addiction.
Lewis is criticized because he is wasting his energy on the play and not on the real political problems, the Vietnam War, that matter for Nick and Lucy. Lewis is seen almost as a traitor because of this and it shows how some people are able to create a hierarchy of importance and how they become enraged when someone decides to contest it. The general impression left in this scene is that ‘’normal’’ people can become quickly unbalanced as well, just as Nick became when he felt betrayed by Lewis.
In the Second Act we see Lewis becoming closer to the mental patients. In the first scene of the second act, he even shares a kiss with Julie during a blackout and this can be seen as the point when his ideas and the trajectory of his life changes drastically. Other characters, like Cherry and Zac, experience positive changes as well as a result of being involved in the play and in this sense, the play is cathartic, offering the characters the possibility to let go of their negative emotions.
In the second scene, Lewis choses to stay with the patients rather than go with Lucy to a demonstration. He is called a traitor as a result and reprimanded for his choice. Lewis explains that the reason he does this is because he wants to promote love, implying thus that he sees Lucy’s and Nick’s actions as hateful. Secrets are reveled in this scene as well when Lucy admits she was having an affair with Nick and when Dough tells Lucy about the kiss Lewis and Julie shared. This almost mirrors the story from the opera, the lovers in the opera almost cheating on one another. The description of Lucy is also used to further show how women are unreliable and untrustworthy.
Another confrontation, this time between Lewis and Nick, takes place in the next scene on the opening night of the play. Lewis refuses to be pushed around this time by Nick and ends up punching him, severing their ties forever. In this play we also see Lewis taking over the team of actors, helping them get over their negative emotions and thus becoming even closer to them. Lewis is akin to a father figure in this sense, taking care of those who need him.
The last two scenes of the play highlights how the play helped the patients. Julie decides to leave the institute and the rest of the patients list the benefits they experienced after having a part in the play. The one who is changed the most is Lewis, whose idea about love and value changes drastically. He is no longer presented as the idealistic man but rather as a compassionate one, who puts a lot of thought into his actions and the way he treats other people.
The play ends with Lewis standing alone on the stage and talking about the fate of the characters. Zac and Ruth return to society and are described as becoming valuable members and functional members of society. Cherry, Dough and Henry’s fate remains uncertain. The most tragic fate is that of Julie’s, who dies of an overdose after leaving the institute. This offers a sense of tragedy to the play, remind everyone how life is uncertain and more than often, tragic.
