This book's aim is clear: an exploration of the dramatic representations of madness in theatre. The preface highlights how both psychiatrists and dramatists are concerned with delineating extreme mental states. Throughout his journey from ancient Greek theatre to the contemporary work of Sarah Kane and Wole Soyinka, Oyebode locates examples of descriptive psychopathology. Readers will experience Shakespearean delusional jealousy in The Winter's Tale, induced jealousy in Othello, melancholia and factitious madness in Hamlet and disintegrative madness in King Lear. Oyebode explores how Ibsen exposed his characters' inner worlds, pre-dating Freud's concern with how the past affects us. Problematic family relationships, suicide and Côtard's syndrome are available for study in Ibsen's dramatisations.

Ancient Greek theatre receives considerable attention. Of particular interest is the discussion of Oedipus Rex. Oyebode argues that this ancient play challenges our contemporary ‘assumed association between self-knowledge and personal growth’. It is Oedipus' quest for self-discovery (his unwitting incest and murder of a blood relative) which leads to tragedy. The book reaches its zenith when presenting uncomfortable dilemmas, made relevant to current-day psychiatry. This questioning of certainties finds greatest expression in chapter 7, through Harold Pinter's exposition of the ‘quicksand that is reality’. Oyebode suggests that the encounters between this playwright's characters have parallels with those between psychiatrists and patients in a post-modern world: ‘What is expected of both parties is ambiguous… can be experienced as threatening and potentially treacherous’. The point is reiterated by Kane's dramatic work, 4:48 Psychosis,in which she bares her own mental anguish and her relationships with psychiatrists. In contrast to this focus on mental states of individuals, Soyinka's African plays are concerned with degenerating human society. Oyebode argues that Soyinka's plays evoke the brutality and corrupt leadership in parts of contemporary Africa, equivalent to a mad world.

Madness at the theatre has widespread appeal. The particular relevance of theatre to psychiatrists is best described by Tennessee Williams' Blanche DuBois as she addresses the courteous doctor who is taking her to the asylum: ‘Whoever you are – I have always depended on the kindness of strangers’.