Reviews London TheatreOWE & Fringe Published 10 February 2016

Review: Hysterical at Vaults

The Vaults ⋄ 3rd - 7th February 2016

“An absurdist and comedic exploration of etymological entanglements.” Brendan Macdonald reviews Karis Halsall’s work-in-progress.

Brendan Macdonald
Hysterical by Karis Halsall at Vaults.

Hysterical by Karis Halsall at Vaults.

You can always start with etymology. It’s an easy introduction when you feel stumped, or when writer’s block is hitting and you can’t really afford the extra coffee that will fuel you through the breakthrough. And it’s easy: a quick Google search instantly generates little treasure trails of associative goodness for you to investigate, all the while sparing you an overdraft charge.

But etymology can also define us. The complex linguistic web that accompanies a word, a word like ‘hysterical’, also has the capacity to trap its subjects. It can be a restrictive force, one which ensnares us in a perpetuating maze of meaning. Hysteria comes from the Latin hystericus meaning ‘of the womb’, and carries with it hundreds of years of correlation between women and madness. Karis Halsall’s Hysterical is an absurdist and comedic exploration of these etymological entanglements, of what we mean by ‘mentally ill’, and how linguistic labyrinths sometimes explain us, even against our will.

What better place to start than an advertising agency, where wordplay and word association are used not only to explicitly sell products but to subliminally influence what we buy. June (Sarah Fraser), the every woman who is also known as ‘wombless June’, has won herself an opportunity to create an ad campaign for bottled water. She bases her copy on the notion of purity (lo, images of the Virgin Mary on rollerskates doth appear), and with an excellently horrible product name, she forces the connection between woman, the immaculate, and the hysterical. As the snippy whirlwind scenes continue to unfold, June deals with placating an utterly impossible boss Mercedes (Fionnuala Kennedy) and caring for her brother Kris (Sam Adamson) who lives in a mental hospital. She begins to question her sanity and what sanity even means.

Hysterical excels at producing an increasing chaos, a vortex which looks very similar to the etymological web. We are confronted by the meanings of hysteria and its relation to womanhood through a ‘who’s more hysterical’ competition between June and her colleague Catherine (Alice Trow) doing yoga, with the Emcee of the event being a small baby puppet with an absurdly large penis. Hysterical is a work that is still in progress, and feels a bit like an all-inclusive brainstorming session where idea after idea is kaleidoscopically thrust onto the stage.

Sometimes it’s an overload, an excess that is just a bit excessive. While archetypes (The Mime, The Whore) are used in conjunction with the shifting scenes to evoke the collapsing of June’s physical and creative world, more effort to contextualise the theatrical space would sharpen the action (deciding whether actors do or do not engage with the audience, for instance). The production must find a balance between embracing its own confusion and avoiding being stifled by it.

Hysterical was on as part of Vaults Festival. Click here for more of their programme.

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Brendan Macdonald is a contributor to Exeunt Magazine

Review: Hysterical at Vaults Show Info


Produced by Hoax and Luminary Theatre Co-production

Directed by Stephen Sobal

Written by Karis Halsall

Cast includes Sarah Fraser, Kristin Blakstad, Sam Adamson, Fionnuala Kennedy, Alice Trow.

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