Oxford University gives grant for student’s new play in London

When playwright Alexandra Hart was still a student at her all-girls secondary school, it struck her as odd that so many girls were having mental health issues such as eating disorder and depression, yet it appeared to be a relatively new phenomenon.

“Did the problems really not exist in the past or was it just that no-one talked about it?” she says.

Alexandra set out to discover the answer and, after painstakingly researching women’s mental health, wrote Hysteria.. Billed as a haunting and politically charged play it examines the boundaries between madness and sanity, and who ultimately decides where these lie.

The play has been five years in the making. Alexandra says she did not want to create a play that was “trauma porn” – she wanted it to be authentic with a valid back story. She looked at the Victorian representation of mental health in literature and visited the Bedlam Hospital Museum to examine the history of mental health. As a result, she discovered she was correct – women’s mental health problems were nothing new, they have been around for centuries and afflicted many famous women including Moll Flanders, Zelda Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath and Marsha P. Johnson.

Set in an asylum, the play asks what if all these women had all been receiving treatment together in one hospital ward? A combination of fact and fiction, 19th-century undercover journalist Nellie Bly feigns insanity to investigate the appalling conditions faced by patients in psychiatric asylums, her journey blurs the line between investigation and identification. As relationships develop, tempers fray, and systems of power are laid bare, Nellie struggles to remain objective when faced with stories that highlight the systemic abuse women have received throughout history.

Produced by the Counterminers, a largely Jewish production company, the cast includes Jewish performers Amy Cash, Estelle Cousins, and Georgia Grant.

A Masters student at Oxford University, Alexandra has been researching the representation of female insanity on the stage and her college has given her a grant towards staging Hysteria.

Having previous written Mother Knows Best about three generations of Jewish mothers and daughters, Alexandra is already working on her next play, and once more it will be a Jewish themed performance.

“I find myself more and more connected to my Jewish heritage, and when I write Jewish-themed work I find it is an enriching process,” she says.

Hysteria is at Golden Goose Theatre until 22 November. goldengoosetheatre.co.uk