Circus, a two-act drama,  represents not only a place but a state of mind.  It tells the story of Raina Shepherd and her detachment from reality. Raina has been mentally ill for close to 40 years.  She is unable to cope alone and has lived with her mother Mercedes her entire life.  As the play opens, Mercedes is about to depart.   She is taking a trip to the Grand Canyon where she first met her dearly departed husband Cliff, but things are not right with Raina.  She is acting more and more delusional and is skipping on her meds. 

Afraid to leave Raina alone, Mercedes invites Raina’s brother, Daniel and her son, Griffin (a baby Raina bore some 20 years ago) to stay with Raina.  Daniel has raised Griffin out west in Vancouver for close to 10 years.

To add to the already unstable environment in the Shepherd household, Raina wants nothing more to do with her psychiatrist Dr. Cranshaw and would prefer to be left alone.  Her world is falling apart and it has everything to do with Mercedes’ attempt to return to the Grand Canyon.  The trip is the catalyst for searing revelations regarding the Shepherd household that touches every member of this fractured family.

Circus challenges an audience to experience what mental illness is like for a person when they are not sure of what is real and what is not, who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.  

To achieve this effect, the structure of Circus plays with time lines flashing back to moments as seen through the eyes of Raina.  But how accurate are these past memories?  Are they in fact true memories or pure fantasies or a combination of both?  Dream-like effects are used throughout Circus in the guise of voices and images.  In these instances the play takes on an experimental edge adding further to Raina’s already fragile state.

Raina is surrounded by characters in Circus who often appear to her as younger versions of themselves or as another character.  She confuses one person for another and thereby trusts nobody to save or even care for her. 

The atmosphere is circus-like and the play culminates to no easy answers.  The overriding theme in Circus is that the truth can be harsh and that the hardest truth to accept is that no matter how unstable someone is or appears, they are human and must be treated with dignity.