The City For Incurable Women – The Wardrobe Theatre

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!

It’s 1880s Paris, and Dr Jean-Martin Charcot is studying hysteria at  the Salpêtrière Hospital. Here, the doctors go to extraordinary  lengths to prove their theories about the four stages of madness,  having female patients perform ‘hysteria’ to the public.

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.

But hysteria is far from over; its social consequences continue to  extend and echo through generations. Stereotypes of ‘madwomen’  today led the company to explore the history of hysteria.

Discovering the hilarious absurdity and disturbing darkness of this  story, The City for Incurable Women offers a queer perspective on a feminist history, exploring the repercussions for all genders.

Image Credit – Ellis Buckley