MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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Cuckoo land
JAMES WALSH is compelled by an eloquent, scattershot broadside at modern psychiatry
Sammy Trotman in That's Not My Name; detail from A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière, 1887, by André Brouillet
[Paris Descartes University/CC]
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
That’s Not My Name
Golden Goose Theatre
IN a tent by a tempestuous sea, a young woman is having a tantrum on the floor. Crisps are everywhere, bar where are they supposed to be. Is this normal? Well, that’s kind of the point of That’s Not My Name, an eloquent, scattershot broadside at modern psychiatry.
Sammy Trotman is white, privileged, and heavily pathologised. Borderline personality disorder. Dissociative personality disorder. A narcissist, perhaps. A sociopath? As this show explains, in its own, often unfocused way, a lot of these labels rely on context. And what matters, perhaps, is the cycle of trauma, and how we break it.
In short, this is not a great advert for late capitalism, even if you have the wealth to circumnavigate our collapsing mental health services.
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