While I did not find the actual production of For King and Country the most entertaining thing I have ever seen, the subject matter was something that really caught my eye. Up until walking into that theatre and reading the program, I had no idea that they used to execute people for “deserting” during World War 1. And then to discover that most deserters are now believed to have been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder was a whole new shock. In their production, they skirted the topic and issue the main character was on trial for, and I find that very representative of the way mental health in general was, and still is, approached.
Had I not read the program before the play started I would have totally forgotten what this play was about. And while heading into this play blind probably would have kept me a little more on my toes, not doing so gave me the ability to look at the production in a new and more knowledgeable way. I could see more clearly the avoidance the script was doing. The refusal to acknowledge the reason for Hamp’s trial was not mentioned in the least for at least the entire first act. This in itself is a good clue to see how these kinds of topics were broached back then. In secrecy and hushed tones, hoping not to spread the idea of deserting or of madness to the other soldiers.
This hope that not acknowledging a topic will make it disappear entirely is something seen again and again throughout history, generally to do with mental health topics. Whether its men who fear putting the idea that women can love other women in their heads or spreading the idea that what you think and feel may not be just a "low spell," this is something that has been happening to various people in various ways for many years. And so, by using the script to avoid directly mentioning why Hamp is on trial, they are mirroring this same action in the play.
This same approach to the topic of “shell shock” is seen in later acts as well. In fact, the only person bold enough to actually use the words “mental health” is the defense officer. While this must have been a relatively new idea at the time, that does not change the fact that everyone else distinctly avoided the term. Even Hamp himself didn’t acknowledge it. In fact, the actual army doctor refused to accept that Hamp could even have possibly been suffering from shell shock further shrouding this condition in uncertainty.
Showing the doctor’s uncertainty in this near violent way is also extremely representative of the way mental health is approached even today. Ignored and shoved into corners until it can’t be ignored any longer. And when it reaches that point it tends to blow up in everyone’s face. Mental health is not something that can be ignored for long and when it does come out of the shadows most people are extremely annoyed by it. They see it as a nuisance. As something that people use to get attention. Or in Hamp’s case, to get out of something.
Digging deeper into the questioning of the doctor by the defense officer also allows us an insight into both the way mental health was treated in the early 1900s and in today’s culture as well. A big part of the defenses point is that the doctor had no right to judge whether Hamp was struggling with PTSD because they didn’t actually know enough about it yet. The scale of this particular mental health issue was so under researched that it was impossible to be able to pin point an exact behavior that is crossing the line into dangerous territory.
While we have made leaps and bounds in terms of progress, I still feel that our research into the mental health is lacking in areas—especially when it comes to PTSD. The line we use to judge such illnesses is still blurry. And we still have a few more bounds to go before we can fully look back on our past treatments with total and complete shame. And while For King and Country focuses on the deserters of World War One, it also gives insight into how far we have come, and how far we still have to go.
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