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 in their critically-acclaimed show (★★★★ The Guardian, The Stage, ★★★★★ Theatre Weekly) 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 Institute and London Performance Studios.