Review: L’Indiscipline at Voila! Theatre Festival
Science and spectacle collide in L’Indiscipline, a dark comedy that makes its English-language premiere at London’s Voila! Theatre Festival.
Written by Michal Vojtech, Pierre Albert Ollivier, and Ariel de la Garza, and performed by Threepenny Collective’s ensemble of fresh voices, the play arrives in London fresh from its world debut at the OFF Festival in Avignon earlier this year.
The production plunges audiences into the unsettling world of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot’s infamous Tuesday lectures at the Salpêtrière asylum. What begins as a clinical demonstration of “mysterious” mental disorders of the time quickly twists into a missing person mystery. Charcot prepares to present his star patient, Louise Augustine Gliezes, under hypnosis, but when she fails to appear, his assistant Tourette is scrambles to improvise with other women from the ward. The result exposes the bizarre and thoroughly questionable techniques that blurred the line between medicine and theatre.
I was fascinated to learn that the events and figures depicted in L’Indiscipline are drawn directly from history. The writers blend meticulous research with theatrical experimentation, using satire to interrogate power, spectacle, and performance in medical practice.
What lingers after the performance is the chilling reminder of how women’s bodies were once turned into theatre under the guise of science. By twisting history into dark comedy, L’Indiscipline forces us to reckon with the uneasy overlap of spectacle and suffering. As audience members, we become complicit in the “lectures,” laughing at absurdities even as we squirm at the cruelty beneath them. The play forces us to confront the ways power still thrives on performance, turning suffering into display.
Directed by Ariel de la Garza Davidoff and Ilya Wray, the production features performances from Sacha Augeard, Fabio Goutet, Daniela Hirsh, Clément Jarrige, and Raphael Ruiz. The ensemble leans into the absurdity with bold physicality. At times, the exaggerated jumping and shouted exclamations felt over the top, occasionally obscuring the clarity of the moment, but the energy was undeniable.
Even knowing the gesture was staged, the sight of the doctors trying to grab at a patient made me flinch. The choreography carried the weight of reality, and the moment landed with disturbing force.
The old-style projector was a particularly effective touch, casting sepia-toned photographs across the stage. These images deepened the sense of history, grounding the satire in the unsettling reality of Charcot’s world.
The performance left me wanting to dig deeper into the real history — to understand more about the women whose lives were caught up in Charcot’s spectacle.
These London dates form part of the Voila! Theatre Festival 2025, a multilingual programme featuring theatre across languages and cultures across venues. Its aim is to celebrate performance that challenges cultural and linguistic boundaries.
Address: Theatro Technis, 26 Crowndale Rd, London NW1 1TT
Website: https://www.voilafestival.co.uk
Instagram:, https://www.instagram.com/ttechnis
