Ladies and Gentlethem – feeling a little upset? Have you tried hypnosis, psychoanalysis, smelling salts and it just doesn't work? Try The City for Incurable Women!
Paris, 1880s. In a psychiatric hospital, female patients performed ‘hysteria’ for the public. The doctors went to extraordinary lengths to prove their theories about the four stages of madness. Today, in the 21st century, the storyteller Kae, begins to explore this history. They trace the echoes to the present, feeling them linger in their own body, and perhaps get a little too caught in the story.
International theatre-collective, fish in a dress follows the thread of the history of hysteria as the audience becomes complicit in an outrageous tale of medical misogyny. (Warning: hysteria cure not included).
Devised by fish in a dress. Supported by Goethe Institut and London Performance Studios.
Performer: Charlotte McBurney
Director: Christina Deinsberger
Writer: Helena McBurney
Set and Costume Design: Vanessa Sampaio Borgmann
Sound Design: Bella Kear
Audio Described version in collaboration with Esther Irving
Tobi King Bakare and this theatre deserve a shout-out for such a young, diverse audience. There is so much talk about audiences being full of over 60s and why, why can’t theatres get the crowds in to reflect society in general? Well, I’m happy to say that on a rainy Thursday evening, the theatre was completely full.
Caiti Grove on Before I Go in CPT's Spring 2023 season London Theatre Reviews
