Collegiate Times

When Ann Kilkelly, professor of Women?s Studies, began the conception of ?Prozac Blues,? a performance that prods into the conflicts surrounding Prozac and depression, people came to her in droves, asking if she needed a main character. ?I could be your main character,? the person would tell her. It got to a point, she said, where it became funny. Everybody, says Kilkelly, seemed to have a story to tell.

Using those stories, Kilkelly and the other collaborators pulled from their own experiences and those of others to create a theatrical performance addressing issues surrounding depression and the use of prescription drugs to treat the illness. Through the use of images and small skits, ?Prozac Blues? hopes to instigate discussion among the Blacksburg community on the issues surrounding the diagnosis of depression, gender differences of the illness and living with someone who is depressed.

First performed during the 2005 Choices and Challenges forum, ?Prozac? returned to the Virginia Tech campus again last weekend as part of Women?s Month.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health website, women are twice as likely to become depressed than men are. There are several reasons for this, such as biological factors, including the hormonal and reproductive cycle of females, abuse and social factors concerning gender roles and expectations, according to the National Institute of Mental Health?s website.

?From my own experience, there is definitely a difference in the genders in how they are treated, thought of, and diagnosed in comparison to men,? said Bep Cooper, staff member for the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. ?Women are seen as more emotional, and even today as a society we still have that impression that women are supposed to take care of the world.?

One segment of the performance featured an advertisement of a female. Cast members represented different gender roles of the character: mother, wife, daughter and career woman. Taking on these separate roles, the cast became jumbled into a mass of confusion, each role interjecting itself into the other roles. A preceding advertisement showed the woman capable of fulfilling each expected gender role by taking a prescription, such as Prozac. Women in an oppressed society grow up conditioned to follow the role of mother or wife with little political or economic choice in the world, Kilkelly said. As these roles shift, however, women are allowed more roles, including those previously given to males.

Despite this, ?the very condition of being a woman is still in a sense very suppressing,? Kilkelly said. ?That was one of the points I hoped would come out of the advertisement shown. The advertisement is really reproducing that notion saying, ?OK, you can take this pill and fulfill all the gender expectations of the culture.? That idea of why we are taking the pills is reinforcing all those gender ideals.?

The performance did not discount the positive aspects of taking prescription drugs. Rather, it placed a social commentary and philosophical critique upon them. For patients, the new medications may be a miracle, but Kilkelly emphasized the manufacturer?s reason for promoting certain drugs.

?It?s really hard to figure out how to have an opinion on taking medication or not,? Kilkelly said. While previously there were no options for people diagnosed with depression, ?now, there are a million medications. People are telling you to do acupuncture or telling you to do therapy, to eat better, to exercise and there?s no real bottom line. You just have to use all your strategies and coping mechanisms.?

Though the performance dealt with a serious issue, the performers and segments kept the tone light-hearted through the jokes, song and dance. One segment parodied the show ?Jeopardy,? called ?Depression Jeopardy.? The segment depicted the misdiagnosis of many depressed patients by having contestants ask what symptoms correlated with each mental illness. When all the symptoms were the same for each illness, contestants became frustrated and left the stage. The announcer became even more frustrated than the contestants, mimicking the mood swings of bipolar disorder.

Audience members clearly appreciated the performance and were more than willing to share experiences of their own in the discussion forum following the performance. While one audience member told of her struggle, her mother?s depression and contemplation of suicide, another audience member told about her crushing depression after hitting menopause. The straightforward performance opened the door for people with similar experiences to relate to one another ? exactly what Kilkelly had hoped for.

?Depression is a combination of repressed anger and silence and how depressed someone is may be a function of a restriction on them to speak and express,? Kilkelly said. By breaking her silence theatrically, Kilkelly broke the silence of many others.