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Some psychologists and parents argued that it risked glamorizing the condition, but one performer described the experience as empowering: “Onstage, I can be who I really am.”
When a Swiss theater invited people with eating disorders to be involved in a play about Joan of Arc this fall, it caused a furor. Some therapists and parents of girls with anorexia criticized the move as “ethically reprehensible” and said it could jeopardize performers’ health.
So when Janine Rickenbach, who has had anorexia for decades, took the Theater Basel stage last week in the premiere, she knew that some audience members were judging her appearance as much as her performance.
Yet during the two-hour show, Rickenbach, 44, appeared unfazed. At one point, wearing a camisole top that revealed her arms and neck, she stared impassively at the audience while delivering a monologue that seemed to address the outcry.
“What are you thinking right now?” she said: “Are you thinking, ‘Oh my God…’” Was that “because I look the way I look?” she asked, “Or because I’m standing here on this stage? Because my struggle is visible?”
Theater makers have long depicted health struggles onstage, including the realities of living with H.I.V. and cancer, but the debate around this production, titled “Jeanne Dark” and running through May 22, has shown that ethical questions remain about how various conditions are portrayed theatrically — and who gets to shape those depictions.
Ulrike Schmidt, a specialist in eating disorders at King’s College, London, said in an email that anybody depicting mental health onstage needed to consider the potential for stigmatization, perpetuating stereotypes or “inappropriate glamorization”