Threepenny Collective Presents L’INDISCIPLINE: A Grotesque Satire of 19th-Century Medical Practice at Voila! Theatre Festival

L’Indiscipline, a dark comedy where science becomes a spectacle, premieres in English at Voila! Theatre Festival

Threepenny Collective are delighted to announce that L’Indiscipline written by Michal Vojtech, Pierre Albert Ollivier, and Ariel de la Garza and featuring an ensemble cast of fresh voices, will make its English-language premiere as part of the Voila! Theatre Festival in London on 14th and 15th November 2025. 

Presented as part of the Voila Festival, this London run marks the English-language premiere of a play which debuted its world premiere at the OFF Festival in Avignon earlier this year.

Set during one of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot’s notorious Tuesday lectures at the Salpêtrière asylum, L’Indiscipline dives into his investigations surrounding the “mysterious” mental disorders of the time, exposing the bizarre and thoroughly questionable techniques he used. What begins as a clinical demonstration quickly unravels into grimly comic theatre. Charcot prepares to present his star patient, Louise Augustine Gliezes, under hypnosis to the crowd - but when she fails to appear, his assistant Tourette is forced to improvise with other women in the ward, and the lecture descends into grotesque spectacle laced with bleakly macabre wit.

The events and figures depicted in L’Indiscipline are drawn from history, though their strangeness often feels closer to fiction than fact. In revisiting this morbid period of history, the play uses bleakly funny humour to examine the absurdity and cruelty of medical practices that blurred the line between research and performance, turning suffering into public display - and in doing so, offers a pointed, grimly comic reflection on how institutional power, spectacle, and exploitation continue to shape our world today.

Event Information:

Dates: 14th & 15th November 2025

Venue: Theatro Technis - 26 Crowndale Rd, London NW1 1TT

Tickets link: https://www.voilafestival.co.uk/events/lindiscipline/