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Set during the Salem Witch Trials on the day the first "witch" has been hanged, Hysterics unfolds inside a single home where three reclusive sisters are placed under examination for signs of “affliction” by an unseen male physician whose judgment may determine their fate. His authority enters the room through his chilling handmaid, sent to observe, record, and report—transforming the ordinary into evidence and the home into a place with nowhere to hide.What is framed as a “protective service” becomes something far more dangerous. A gesture, a hesitation, a word spoken too quickly—or not at all—can mark a woman as damned. What emerges is not a clear truth, but a system that demands one— and punishes whatever it cannot tolerate.
As suspicion takes root, the line between truth and survival begins to blur, and each sister must decide what she is willing to do to stay alive: protect, confess, or betray. But within a system that manipulates rather than listens, care is reframed as control, fear interpreted as guilt, and even love castigated as "wickedness".
Blending psychological tension with moments of unsettling recognition, Hysterics examines how authority disguises itself as “concern,” how credibility becomes gendered, and how women are asked—again and again—to account for themselves in a world that has already decided who they are. Drawing on the gendered history of “hysteria” and diagnosis, the play interrogates how bodies, emotions, and behavior are interpreted through institutional lenses that claim neutrality while imposing a biased agenda.
Rooted in history but unmistakably present, Hysterics asks a chilling question: what happens when the need for protection turns the innocent into examples, and systems claiming to protect begin to categorize, condemn, and K*ll?
The witch hunt never ended. It simply changed shape.
Tickets on sale April 15
https://www.crowdwork.com/e/hysterics?date=2026-06-10T19:00:00
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Event Venue
Vegas Theatre Company, 1023 S 1st St, Las Vegas, NV 89101-6416, United States
Tickets
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