Steering through mental illness with dark humor

The description of Ellie Brelis’ play “Driver’s Seat: Obsessive Compulsive Disaster” immediately grabs our attention. Buckle up for a twisted ride through OCD, an epic breakup, a major breakdown, coming out, and, just possibly, learning how to drive. Ellie Brelis may be afraid of crashing a car, but she has no fear of crashing out.

I interviewed Brelis, who wrote and performs the one-person show, and director Leif Moore, to learn more about this intriguing endeavor.

Abby Remer: Ellie, tell me how the show came about.

Ellie Brelis: It started in 2020 with COVID. A global pandemic is not good for anyone, but for someone with severe OCD, I was terrified all the time. Then there was that I had been in a relationship with a man, and we lived together. He went on a business trip on March 1, 2020, and never came home. We broke up over the phone in the middle of May.

On top of that, I was smoking a lot of cannabis, which I hadn’t done before. I was like, ‘It’s COVID, why not? I’m stuck inside being artsy and painting; let me really lean into that persona.” Then my paternal grandfather got COVID and died. All this was happening when I decided it was the perfect time to come out as queer … and let me get the world’s ugliest haircut.

AR: You asked to be hospitalized. What was it like?

EB: I felt so alone, vulnerable, and confused, and nobody in my personal life understood what I was going through. I didn’t have anybody who could relate and say, “Oh, I remember when I was institutionalized.” 

When you’re in that setting, it’s a really disorienting experience. You’re heavily medicated, and every day feels like the same, so I would write things down that I wanted to remember. I asked, “What can I do to feel connected to theater?” I thought, I have to create a one-person show, because it’s literally me, myself, and I and my grippy socks … who else am I going to collaborate with? I started writing monologues about my experiences, and that’s what carried me through the rest of my treatment. 

I returned to treatment in 2023, and the play is informed by all my experiences and childhood with OCD. I want to be a reliable narrator, so I don’t glorify institutionalized care, but I also don’t weaponize it. It’s a fine line to walk, because I can only speak to my experience.

AR: What is the gist of the show?

EB: The play provides insight into what OCD is, and the way it can show up, disturb your life, and impact your family. It’s a dark disorder, but I find a lot of humor in it. “Driver’s Seat” is about how to have agency over my life and my brain, and how to live the life I want while having these things I must deal with. OCD wants to make your world really, really small, but if I want to truly live life, I have to be willing to be uncomfortable and scared. 

AR: Leif, you and Ellie met three summers ago doing “Twelfth Night” together at the Tisbury Amphitheater with the Playhouse. You say you connected as queer people and mentally ill people. So what has it been like directing “Driver’s Seat”?

Leif Moore: Ellie has done it many times, but I was honored to be asked to direct it. My favorite part of live theater is the potential for an audience to see themselves represented onstage. Something cool about “Driver’s Seat” is that it addresses mental illness, which is both deeply isolating and extremely universal. You don’t have to have OCD to see yourself in the self-doubt and the struggle. The humor is also very important to me, as someone who likes to laugh but also deals with a lot of very intense things. I think we forget that it’s OK to laugh while going through a hard time, and this show gives permission to do so.

AR: Ellie, what would you like audiences to take away from “Driver’s Seat”?

EB: One is that they come away with a better understanding of OCD. I hear so many times: “Oh, I’m really OCD about that!” That’s really dangerous. When people say, “We’re all a little OCD,” it makes people with OCD feel even more isolated and alone. My friend liking to have her pencils color-coded is very different from me having intrusive thoughts about stabbing my roommate when I’m cutting a cucumber. It’s also dangerous for people to misrepresent OCD because it affects when and how people get a diagnosis. Many people don’t get a diagnosis until much later in life. Accessing OCD treatment, which is exposure, response, and prevention therapy, is also very challenging. Humanizing the illness through humor is also very important — to be able to laugh with friends and say, “Oh, I just had the most messed-up, intrusive thought ever,” and then be able to laugh at it. It helps take away the power of OCD.

The thing I am most proud of is when people come up to me or message me after the show and say, “I understand my kid so much more now,” or “I’m never going to say, ‘I’m so OCD’ after seeing your show.” Then some people tell me that after seeing my show they talked to their therapist, and were finally able to get an OCD diagnosis.

AR: Both of you have done theater on the Island. And Leif, you live here year-round. Ellie, when did your connection begin?

EB: I spent every summer here in my childhood. It was always a happy and safe place, and one where my OCD could get a little quieter at times. And I started working with the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse in 2016, and that’s when I felt I found my home on the Island, with the brilliant creative people at the Playhouse and Circuit Arts. I live in Cambridge, and a lot of people have asked why I’m not doing it in Boston or Cambridge. I did the show three times in New York, two times in L.A., and once at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, all with long runs. I felt it couldn’t go to Massachusetts without coming to the Vineyard first. It’s my artistic home, and I’d feel like I was having an affair if I brought it anywhere else in Massachusetts before here. The Island community of theater artists are the people who made me realize I can do theater for my whole life and believe in myself in ways I didn’t think were possible.

Please note that this play addresses mental illness, suicidal ideation, and substance use. It may not be suitable for all viewers. Helpful resources about OCD will be available at the theater for the Island population.

“Driver’s Seat: Obsessive Compulsive Disaster” is playing on Sept. 18 and 19 at the M.V. Playhouse. For pay-what-you-can tickets and more information, visit circuitarts.thundertix.com/events/269967.