L’Indiscipline is a mad show full of creativity and promise and an exemplar of what fringe theatre is all about.
The play focuses on the Salpetriere hospital and its celebrity doctor Jean-Martin Charcot. We begin in a lecture, ourselves as the audience, as Charcot and his assistant Gilles demonstrate their various patients, turning their mental disorders into a psuedo-scientific circus show. Their star patient however, a ‘hysteric’ called Louise Gliezes, has disappeared. Gradually, clues are fed to us that this disappearance might not be temporary: a blood stain, a stolen car, a missing gun. From here the control of the two doctors unravels as they try and work out what is going on, all while trying to control their patients and maintain a calm image for us, their lecture audience.
As a premise, it’s a rich idea, not least because it is based on a true story. Charcot was a real doctor, many of his experiments stranger than this play, and Louise Gliezes really was exhibited as a ‘hysteric’. The three writers – Michal Vojtech, Pierre Albert Ollivier and Ariel de la Garza Davidoff – take this world and explore it through comedy and melodrama, where the mad ideas of both doctors and patients quickly build into a sickly, grim world.
As a production it excels in its comedy. Watching Charcot and Gilles fight as they try to maintain a degree of order during their lecture is excellent. Raphael Ruiz plays Charcot with a frightening amount of energy, becoming literally hopping mad as things begin to go wrong, to the point where it is easy to believe that he should be the one on display as a hysteric. Fabio Goutet is an excellent foil to this as Gilles, and a valuable anchor for the audience, becoming the only semi-normal character in a play that throws a lot of energy and information at its audience. Sacha Augeard, Clément Jarrige, Daniela Hirsh succeed as the trio of patients, finding physical performances that nicely differentiate and describe their characters.
It is a good thing that this cast of actors is so game, because this play is truly hectic and runs like a rollercoaster. Approached half-heartedly it would surely fall flat, but as it is it pulls off its odd blend of melodrama and dark comedy. This is likely to be somewhat of a marmite show, you’re on board or you’re not, and there are moments where the frenetic energy of the show can struggle to give us room to breathe. Charcot’s numerous outbursts become increasingly ridiculous, the antics of the patients perhaps a little repetitive. The result of this is that the play can’t quite break out of the comedic and ridiculous and its more serious conclusion lacks a little weight.
Nonetheless, at just over an hour, it remains a fun and engaging piece of fringe theatre, exactly the kind of show the Viola! festival is made to showcase. And there are some really excellent creative decisions on display, the live music performed by Nathan Saudek is especially good, using distorted human voices to create an eerie soundtrack much in the vein of cult-classic TV show Utopia.
As a result, it’s a hard show to place a star rating on, but where it may not be as polished as other shows, it succeeds as a piece of fringe theatre, aiming to explore and show its audiences something just a bit different.
Reviewer: Ralph Jeffreys
Reviewed: 14th November 2025
North West End UK Rating:
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