Nobody gets diagnosed with hysteria these days, medical science having developed in the manner in which it has. But the point in this show seems to be that society hasn’t, at least in certain respects, developed on a similar trajectory. Jean-Martin Charcot, the nineteenth-century neurologist, focuses on the female patients at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. Certain women who were considered hysterics displayed ‘hysteric’ behaviour in front of public audiences. There may not be any contemporary appetite for that sort of thing these days.
Or is there? The play suggests that just as medics coaxed and manipulated those women to behave in certain ways back then, every subsequent generation of women has also been subjected to being used and abused, in different ways and in different contexts. Even then, however, ‘hysteria’ was what women were diagnosed with, while soldiers returning from the battlefield presenting similar symptoms had ‘shell shock’.
It’s one of those plays that does that trendy thing of time-hopping, which makes the show somewhat more complicated than it really needed to be. Charlotte McBurney does brilliantly in this single-performer show, playing all sorts of different characters, from Dr Charcot himself to various patients, giving each a distinct personas and mannerisms. While the closing moments of the play could do with some tightening, McBurney puts in a captivating and energetic performance. A fellow theatregoer compared it to watching Jodie Comer in Prima Facie. High praise indeed for a show with plenty of food for thought.
Review by Chris Omaweng
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.
Actor – Charlotte McBurney
Director – Christina Deinsberger
Writer – Helena McBurney
Sound Designer – Bella Kear
Set/Costume Design – Vanessa Sampaio Borgmann
THE CITY FOR INCURABLE WOMEN
Pleasance Courtyard at the Edinburgh Fringe
30 July to 25 August 2025
