Mental Health Of First Responders Gets Explored At Local Theatre

After shining an empathetic spotlight on suicide, a local venue is taking the pulse of mental health.

Debuting at the Shadowbox Theatre (located at 103b – 1501 Howard Avenue,) on Friday March 9, Vitals by Rosamund Small will be performed for the next two weekends. Presenting the award winning play about a first responder’s trauma, Mary Grace Weir produces, directs and stars in the production. Respecting this group, the show is also based on emergency medical service (EMS) worker interviews.

Reading an interview with Small that that touched upon paramedics’ importance and visibility, it made Weir realize how many may take them for granted.

“This really resonated with me,” she said. “I think we do see more of other types of first responders, say in movies or books, or even in action on the real world. So it is good to highlight this other group, especially given the current situation with the health care system being so overburdened. The play portrays the experience of EMS workers specifically by the types of stories that are being told. Some are pretty gory, but there is also a sense of the responsibility for others’ lives and the sense of failure and helplessness that comes with not always being able to save them.”

In Vitals, Toronto paramedic Anna shares her stories about the job with audiences. Although some are funny, others are poignant and even harrowing. Soon enough however, the EMS worker finds herself needing help due to trauma caused by these same experiences.

How it plays on Anna’s mind is also one of the things that grabbed Weir’s attention.

“There is an element of Anna searching for redemption or absolution for some of the choices she has made, some of them in circumstances where there wasn’t a good choice, some of them in circumstances where her judgement was clouded by her experiences,” she said. “It seems to me that we all make choices that we question later. That looking for validation for choices we are unsure about, or absolution for choices we know were wrong, is an important part of reconciling ourselves to the past and moving into the future.”

It’s a show that forced the director to think of other things she hadn’t previously considered as well.

“I think I hadn’t really thought much about paramedics and how their work affects them,” said Weir. “One of the things that struck me was how gory and brutal it can be – it wasn’t really a surprise, when I stopped to think about it. I remember very clearly hearing the news about the big multi-vehicle accident on Highway 401 in  September 1999. Some of the images were horrific and stick with me even now, especially thinking of people watching their loved ones burn to death trapped in cars. So now I imagine being exposed to that kind of thing constantly as an inescapable part of your job. I have nothing but respect and compassion for people who do this. They are putting themselves and their mental and sometimes physical health on the line every day so the rest of us can be a bit safer. We need to have their backs.”

Overseeing the final product, getting it to stage has been a long journey for Weir. Reading the script when her daughter studied it for university, the producer connected with the story in a general sense: As a mother, Weir related to the idea of being driven to help people while also needing help. Promoting personal connections, she thought it was a play for anyone.

That feeling also came from her own experiences in another way.

“My dad had bouts of depression throughout his life, most of which I did not really know about,” said Weir. “I am very grateful for the help he got when he needed it, especially with two very serious episodes in the last decade or so of his life. I am very grateful for the care he received from some compassionate and knowledgable medical professionals and the support of many friends and family.”

Having first read the script five-years-ago, the director started working on her take in 2020. With the pandemic lockdown just beginning, many people in local theatre were at a standstill. This left those in the arts community a lot of time to work on their own projects.

Being kept at home by the restrictions, Weir contacted a friend about the play.

“I had just finished doing The Fantasticks with my friend Tova Perlmutter,,” said the actor. “She wanted to do something together that could be rehearsed online and perhaps even streamed. This one-person play seemed to fit the bill perfectly. It also seemed appropriate at that time to do a play highlighting the trauma faced by frontline workers since this was omnipresent on the news.”

Although they were forced to set it aside, Vitals stayed on Weir’s mind until asking Perlmutter to revisit it with her. After agreeing in early 2023, they invited RoseAnne Palazzolo to join them and development continued. Set to debut in July, personal circumstances eventually forced its postponement. Meanwhile, Weir had offered to perform the piece for Dr. Michelle MacArthur’s University of Windsor theatre class in October.

Discovering Vitals from her daughter’s time in the program, the full circle moment helped the actor move forward.

“The feedback I got was very positive, especially from paramedics Bruce Krauter and Mechelle Murphy,” said Weir about the two who were part of a talkback session for students. “So I decided to try to organize a public run again. By that time, [Perlmutter] and [Palazzolo] were no longer available to help. That is really why I ended up also producing and directing it myself.”

Beyond Vitals promoting mutual support, the play has Weir experiencing it first hand. Marking her producing and directing debuts, she’s received encouragement and advice from friends and family along the way. Starting the process with Perlmutter and Palazzolo already, the director worked off the direction they helped create. Using this framework, she refined and adjusted the play instead of starting from scratch. Initially sharing producing duties with her collaborators, Weir took some of that work into her current production as well.

In addition, her own skills as an actor were helpful too.

“Even when I am ‘just acting,’ I often have very clear ideas about who my character is and how their story unfolds,” said Weir. “It can be based on attention to rather insignificant-seeming details in the script sometimes. I was able to carry that into directing myself in this show. I guess we’ll see how successful that has been!”

Blending humour and drama, much care was taken to give Vitals a balanced tone. Although it was challenging to play at times, each emotion has its own place. With humour specifically, it’s used in several ways. Breaking the tension in many intense scenes, it allows for a break from traumatic events. Anna also uses humour as a way to conceal and suppress her own struggles: It’s often a coping mechanism that comes out to cover something that bothers, frustrates and angers her or that she feels uncertain about. This emotion also throws many horrors into sharper relief.

Focusing on keeping people engaged, the actor understands they will respond differently however.

“Everyone will be struck by different things depending on their own experiences,” said Weir. “The story draws you in by starting in quite a relatable way, a chatty monologue about some of the frustrations of the job – not knowing what to expect, the irritation at having to deal with inconsiderate people, giving in to the temptation to tell off people who are being unreasonable. Then it turns more specific with a series of stories about calls that are less familiar to most of us, so it is a bit like entering deeper and deeper into a different world with a guide whose narration vacillates between cocktail party banter, classroom instruction and raw confessional.”

It also shows a very blunt picture of the expectations first responders face. Going by speed to positive outcomes, the goal for EMS workers is responding to a call within eight minutes and 59 seconds. Considering current delays when contacting 911 dispatch centres alone, the pressure is something that’s more relevant now than ever.

With this in mind, another major part of Vitals is that net proceeds from ticket sales will benefit We Help First’s peer support programs. The group specializes in coordinating and providing various mental health services to all first responders in Windsor-Essex County.

Despite learning about We Help First last fall, the donation is an idea Weir has had since 2020.

“The decision to donate net proceeds has been in my mind since I first started working on the play at the beginning of the pandemic,” she said. “Seeing the images of haunted faces of overburdened healthcare workers trying to care for dying people without having truly effective medications or therapies, all the while fearing for their own and their families’ health, really moved me. I wanted to be able to give something back, even in a very small way.”

Vitals caps off an unofficial trilogy at the Shadowbox Theatre. Approaching mental health, the venue hosted Windsor Feminist Theatre’s (WFT)production of The Yellow Wallpaper in January and Post Productions’ double bill of The Event/4.48 Psychosis last month. Oddly enough, the play is only at Shadowbox due to an opening in their schedule.

Still, each play complimented one another and highlighted different elements of an important topic.

“The three plays really do highlight different interweaving aspects of mental health,” said Weir. “EMS workers are of course exposed to more severe traumatic situations more frequently than most of us, but anyone can experience similar things – getting into the middle of a fight, being involved in a fire or car accident, experiencing the suicide of a friend or family member. Hopefully people can look at the extreme that the play portrays and recognize something of their own experience there, too. When we can see that even people trained to deal with such situations struggle to cope, it will help remove some of the stigma for everyone.”

Produced in association with WFT, Vitals will be performed by Weir at the Shadowbox Theatre on March 8, 9, 14, 15 and 16. All shows start at 8 p.m. with doors opening at 7:30. Tickets are $25 each and can be purchased online or in person with cash, debit and credit if seats remain. As a content warning, explicit descriptions of violence, sexual assault, gore and self-harm including suicide are presented in the play.

Because of this, first responders will also be present at each show.

“I am arranging to have one or two first responders at each performance so that audience members can have the opportunity to ask questions in a talkback session after seeing the show,” she said. “Hopefully people will find this interesting and helpful in processing what they have seen and heard. Some of it is quite disturbing.”

Like with 4.48 Psychosis though, Weir wants people to leave with an empathetic view on mental health.

“I hope that people will come away with a sense of compassion for those who struggle to cope. And that may mean themselves, too,” said the director. “The message that I find the most compelling in the play is the importance of interconnectedness. If you are struggling, please ask for and accept help! Human (and even non-human companion) connection is so important to our mental health, but in our society there is so much stigma around admitting to mental health struggles. This is a huge issue for Anna in the play, and as she says at one point, ‘it sneaks up on you…’ Also, keep an eye on your loved ones and offer help and support if you see them struggling. Even when things are at their bleakest, there can always be hope when you feel connected.”