The theatre of the madwomen

Synopsis

In the 19th century, Charcot laid the foundations of what was to become psychoanalysis on the basis of one illness: hysteria. A disease that had been understood as specifically female since the time of Hippocrates. A disease which, it was said, could be cured with a dildo. Throughout history, what we understand as madness has often been related to traits we associate with the feminine. Men who have suffered from a disorder have also been considered effeminate, which makes me wonder: To what extent has difference been considered a reason for enclosure? And also, given that sick women were portrayed as Ophelia or Lady Macbeth, to what extent has theatre contributed to the image we have of madness today?  

El teatro de las locas is a metatheatrical work: a theatre company is going to stage a play about madness and confinement. From their discussions and thoughts, we discover what madness means today and the kind of imprisonment suffered by those who deviate from what society expects. In the particularity of the hospital world, Charcot made women patients necessary collaborators of the disease, becoming actresses competing for attention with increasingly histrionic gestures. Similarly in the theatre company, the roles of yesteryear are replicated and the director of the play becomes a new Charcot in order to achieve her perfect tableau vivant. What is it permissible in the name of science? And of art?

Note from the author and director

Concorde Love Store. I walk along the hospital boulevard and stop in front of this shop, in front of the love store: a sex shop. Concorde Love Store is its name. In the window a new product, a special edition vibrator, dedicated to Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe, it occurs to me, doomed to please others. Marilyn the Muse. Marilyn the Mad. Marilyn ended up dead, pumped full of barbiturates. Bipolar personality, onset schizophrenia, sexually unsatisfied… She was afraid of being locked up. In a psychiatric hospital. Like her mother. But Marilyn, sexually unsatisfied, is now the image of a dildo. A genital issue, it occurs to me, on Hospital Boulevard, in front of a sex shop. “Hysteria is always related to the genital”, Charcot says through Freud’s mouth, “always always always”, he says. Today I visited La Salpêtriere: rue Charcot, rue Pinel… I took photos. I took a tour of one of the most abhorrent scenarios in recent history. With my camera. As a tourist. But now I’m embarrassed to enter a sex shop. There is a part of the sex shop dedicated to fetishism, ropes, whips, all kinds of gadgets for pleasure, and for pain. And I remember when I was thirteen, and I used to stick whatever I could find between my legs. Perhaps Charcot was right. Perhaps the problem is always genital. Freud must have thought so, when he created psychoanalysis. Freud’s daughter, who followed the theories of her father, who treated Marilyn Monroe for her deep… depression, must also have thought so. Perhaps the problem is the genitals, yes, or perhaps the problem is psychoanalysis itself.

Lola Blasco