Meet your Lizardbrain

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A new play explores the inner workings of the mind through the life of an

autistic academic

 

In a new play by Philadelphia theater company Pig Iron, the central character is

a PhD botanist, but the play is not about botany, nor academia. He also has many

of the traits associated with autism -- trouble connecting with and

understanding people and many obsessive traits. But the play is not about

autism, either -- at least, not directly.

Sugg in Chekhov Lizardbrain

Image: Pig Iron Theatre Company

Ultimately, the play, Chekhov Lizardbrain, is about the brain, and its power to

manipulate the past, present, and future. And it's about how everyone's brain

also manipulates reality, to a greater or lesser extent.

In Chekhov Lizardbrain the audience sees how the world looks from main character

Dmitri's troubled mind. We see how brains choked by pathology filter upsetting

moments, making them innocuous or even pleasant. In his mind, brothers who

teased him as a child and forgot him as an adult now admire his scientific

achievements and think of him as part of their family. Tense, nuanced, or

emotional moments are converted into straightforward, antiseptic exchanges.

" Memory is not like film, that's the number one rule of consciousness, " Dmitri

says.

In the words of the play's narrator and titular character, Chekhov Lizardbrain:

Everything you experience here this evening, Ladies and Gentlemen, is mediated

by your senses, turned into sensory information, and then, in an audacious feat

of daring, translated by you into ideas, ideas that you can sort and understand.

This is one of the many rules of consciousness, Ladies and Gentlemen: Everything

we see and hear is removed from the thing itself.

The play opens with Dmitri moving from Portland, Oregon back to his hometown of

Oswego, New York, and buying his old family home, which had since been bought by

a group of brothers he grew up with.

At the center of all the action is Chekhov Lizardbrain, played by the same actor

who plays Dmitri, Obie-award-winner Sugg. This character is as puzzling as

his name -- he acts as the play's " ringmaster, " telling all other characters

(including Dmitri and the three brothers) what to do. He speaks with a reptilian

drawl, as if he were a frog struggling to form human words; his body movements

are stiff and slow, with a hand shaped like a webbed foot.

Sugg in Chekhov Lizardbrain

Image: Pig Iron Theatre Company

As an additional clue to Chekhov Lizardbrain's identity, the play's program

contains a quote from Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado

State University who is also autistic, and has written widely about the way her

brain interprets the world. According to Grandin, the human brain is " really

three different brains, each one built on top of the previous at three different

times in evolutionary history...Roughly speaking, the reptilian brain

corresponds to that in lizards and performs basic life support functions like

breathing. " This quote matches how Dmitri describes Chekhov Lizardbrain in the

play. " He's very in touch with his lower brain, you know, from the medulla

oblongata, considering the theory of the three brains. That the upper brain is

human brain and the middle brain is dog brain and the lowest brain is the lizard

brain. "

Chekhov enters the action via Dmitri's imagination, as he converts real-life

conversations into something more pleasant that he believes might appear in a

Chekhov play, by giving characters Russian names and top hats.

According to director Dan Rothenberg, the play was born out of a brainstorming

session with other Pig Iron members. Someone wanted to do something on the topic

of Chekhov, who was a doctor. Coincidentally, Rothenberg and another member,

Dito van Reigersberg (who plays one of the brothers) were both reading Temple

Grandin at the time. They put the two concepts together, and came up with the

title Chekhov Lizardbrain. " We titled the project before we put anything

together, " says Rothenberg.

In portraying a troubled mind, the members " did no medical research, " says

Rothenberg. Rather, they thought about Grandin, and the characters in Chekhov's

play The Three Sisters, and people they knew who also struggle to understand

people's intentions. " I don't want people to just pity Dmitri, " he says. " I want

people to admire his crazy system of making sense of the world.. " The decision

to make Dmitri a botanist was an " intuitive choice, " he says, given that he is

less comfortable with people, and a scientific thinker like Grandin and Chekhov.

But, it's no accident that Dmitri is an academic, Rothenberg adds, given that

obsessive people often thrive there, where the trait is rewarded. " Certainly a

lot of scientists [who have seen the play] have said 'I know somebody like

that,' " Rothenberg laughs.

Chekhov Lizardbrain is playing at the Under the Radar Festival in New York City

through January 17.

Love, Gabby. :0)

http://stemcellforautism.blogspot.com/

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" I know of nobody who is purely Autistic or purely neurotypical. Even God had

some Autistic moments, which is why the planets all spin. " ~ Jerry Newport