THEATER REVIEW: 'World Builders' by Johnna Adams

July 30--They say there's a fine line between genius and madness.

Though Johnna Adam's "World Builders" hinges on the latter, any creative person who takes in the play will likely relate intimately to the idea of living with a world within themselves, a private world that no one else knows about, where stories and ideas are born.

Whether that internal landscape is built of ideas, fantasies or reflection, this act of world building is not reserved for the quote mentally ill, unquote.

"World Builders" is set in a psychiatric ward and focuses on two characters, an outgoing, talkative Whitney (Brenna Palughi) and a withdrawn and depressed Max (Chris Thorn), both in their 30s and diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder.

In an interview with the Contemporary American Theater Festival, which is giving the play its world premiere run through Sunday, Adams, the playwright, openly tells of her bipolar disorder and says, "I know that I wouldn't have my playwriting career without my illness, so I try to embrace it as much as I can."

The question becomes, where is the line between a creative mind and a mentally ill one? Is it qualitative? When does an insignificant daydream become something extreme and potentially dangerous for the dreamer? It's a spectrum, after all, like most things.

The play opens with Whitney and Max deep within their fantasy worlds, a key characteristic of schizoid personality disorder, only to be suddenly interrupted when they notice one another. They're getting a trial dosage of a new drug, and Whitney wants to compare notes. She's curious about Max's inner world.

When the two, who work nicely as foil characters, begin taking the medication, they are painfully aware of how it will affect them -- namely, that their internal worlds will slowly fade with the start of the daily dosing. Both of them know, because they've been through it before: the process of becoming normalized and socially acceptable -- cured, some would say -- at the expense of sacrificing these inner worlds. The thought saddens Whitney, who, among other valid concerns, doesn't want her world's story to cut-off mid-sentence. She's compelled to wrap up the loose ends as her medicine kicks in; she wants to give her characters a proper ending. Max's world, though vastly different from the imaginative, expansive universe Whitney has created, is also in danger of being lost, but Max wants to keep it intact for an entirely different reason.

They share their worlds with one another as a way to preserve them, because they know at some point soon, their worlds will disappear completely.

What they might not be prepared for is the world that will replace them.

"World Builders" runs through Aug. 2 at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, along with four additional plays. See catf.org for show and ticket information.

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