Gathered up in the complex underskirts of the stations behind the Euston Road, Theatro Technis is easy to overlook. But over the years I have seen some fine and innovative shows start their life there before heading on to bigger things. As part of the VOILA! Festival, devoted to multi-cultural and multi-lingual productions, L’Indiscipline alights there briefly, after starting life in Edinburgh. While I am not convinced it is in its best form yet, the subject matter is certainly fascinating and full of dramatic potential.
Jean-Martin Charcot was a Parisian pioneer of neurology, who made lasting contributions to understanding multiple sclerosis and motor neurone disease (to which sometimes his name is attached). But this play focuses on perhaps the most controversial aspect of this work, namely his study of hysteria in connection with hypnosis. The play recreates one of his notorious Tuesday lectures at the Salpêtrière hospital when the Parisian bourgeoisie turned out in force to be ‘entertained’ by a series of certified hysterics. While presented as clinical demonstrations, these sessions shaded quickly into a performative exploitation with which we are deeply uncomfortable, but which was not judged to be such in its day.
Over and above this nexus of issues we are also immediately plunged into a detective mystery: the curtain parts, and the star patient has gone missing, together, as we later learn, with a gun, and a car, while another of the patients is smeared with what appears to be blood. Suffice to say, that in good Chekhovian fashion, all these items then make recurrent appearances as multiple possible explanations are rehearsed.
The authors mingle medical fact with surreal slapstick and farce, and initially this is highly entertaining. However, a couple of serious problems emerge. Firstly, the acting is simply too exaggerated and shouty for too long. While this might pass muster in a late-night show in Edinburgh, it palls in this setting. Farce works best when it is played absolutely seriously and for real. When the states of mind and behaviour are extreme and abnormal in any case, a more effective approach would be to search for light and shade rather than full-on, continually frenetic depiction. And relatedly, it is ten minutes or so too long, with some themes coming back again and again to tedious effect.
That said, there are some impressive aspects, starting with the eerily hypnotic music by Nathan Saudek, which combines voices and instruments and background noises to provide a most effective and unsettling underscore. Equally, some of the direction is highly inventive and full of comic surprise, and expressionist cinema is subtly referenced. Among the performers I would highlight both Sacha Augeard and Clément Jarrige, whose characters are much more rounded and fully formed, even in hysteric states, than the others.
You don’t have to have know your Foucault to enjoy this evening, but the cast and directors could all do with a dose of less-is-more if they want to convey a wider and subtler range of textures and flavours. In that they could take some lessons from the quite excellent Ethiopian restaurant over the road from the theatre.
Theatro Technis
Writers: Michal Vojtech, Pierre Ollivier and Ariel de la Garza Davidoff
Direction: Ariel de la Garza Davidoff, Ilya Wray
Cast: Sacha Augeard, Fabio Goutet, Daniela Hirsh, Clément Jarrige, Raphael Ruiz
14-15 November 2025
75 mins, no interval
Photo Credit: Thomas Sandler, Ariel de la Garza, and Ilya Wray