presents:
X: The Rise and Fall of an Asylum Star
written by Jill Dowse -- directed by Aradhana Tiwari, PLAYTHEMOMENT Productions
Why do we watch? Even when that at which we gaze and gawk is a spectacle of suffering, we can’t look away. Augustine, otherwise known as Patient X, is the “Pin-Up Girl of Hysteria”—a vague and erotic feminine condition that caused much intrigue in Paris during the late 19th Century. Based on a real patient of Dr. Charcot, the father of Neurology and Svengali of hysteria, Augustine was a resident of the infamous Salpetriere Hospital, an insane asylum otherwise known as the "female inferno". In a world of cabaret, the can-can, and cafe concerts, a stranger form of theatre gained popularity in the lecture hall of Salpetriere…