Mens Rea

What happens when criminal justice collides with neurodiversity? That is the question that Mens Rea (Latin for "guilty mind") attempts to answer. In this world premiere, the Defendant, played by Sarah France, confronts the Lawyer, played by Schuyler Marcier, with the stark reality of a deeply traumatized mind which the legal system was never designed to address. Sarah's Defendant, who suffers from a severe case of dissociative identity disorder, alternates between four distinct personalities, each of whom knows a different piece of the overall puzzle. Only by working with all four personalities can Schuyler's Lawyer assemble the full picture of what really happened, in a high-profile murder case which has seized the headlines of New York City in the not-so-distant past. But each of the Defendant's personalities has their own agenda, and the Lawyer himself desperately tries to obscure dark truths from his troubled past.

Mens Rea is written and directed by Jeremy Daw, a graduate of Harvard Law School who has channeled his own personal struggles as a neurodiverse individual attempting to navigate a legal system which judges all people by the standard of the elusive "reasonable man." The show runs at Ukiah Players Theatre for one weekend only, November 6th and 7th at 7pm, and November 8th at 2pm, and will include an intermission as well as an audience Q&A with the writer-director after each performance.