“We spend a lot of time as a culture romanticizing quirky iconoclasts, people who see the world just a little bit differently than us, in films, novels and plays. We spend considerably less time exploring the perspectives of those who actually see the world differently than the average person. There’s a clear (if unfortunate) reason for this: empathy is hard, and it’s easier to see Amelie in ourselves than it is to plumb the depths of working mental illness.
Originally written as an opera by Michael Nyman and based on a case study by Dr. Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a play that follows a celebrated classical singer and college professor, Dr. P, who unknowingly suffers from an illness that contorts his perception of reality into crude shapes colored by memory. His brain is “like an identikit,” claims Dr. S, who personally visits the man’s home and explores his life to diagnose and assist his patient.”
by Mark Skalski, Pittsburgh In The Round
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