With La Medium, Marta Cuscunà continues her research into scenic craftsmanship, figure theatre, and experimentation, returning to confront the dispositifs of power and the historical roots of gender-based violence. At the centre of the performance lies the true story of Hersilie Rouy, daughter of the illusionist Charles Rouy (famous for The Invisible Woman act, in which women were made to disappear inside magical boxes), who was confined to a psychiatric asylum for fourteen years.
During her imprisonment, Hersilie wrote a diary-denunciation with her own blood, recording the abuses she endured and becoming the rebellious voice of the women interned at La Salpêtrière, a symbolic site of nineteenth-century psychiatry and of the study of female hysteria.
Through illusionism, séances, Neapolitan puppetry (guarattelle), and technological devices, Cuscunà constructs a scenic imaginary that brings to light the “invisible women” of both performance and nineteenth-century psychiatric institutions. Here, magic is not used to produce wonder, but to make what has been removed visible.
Hersilie’s story—who after her release succeeded in influencing the reform of the 1838 French law on involuntary confinement—becomes the starting point for a lucid reflection on emancipation, resistance, and memory, as well as on the mechanisms through which institutions discipline, erase, and silence female bodies.
Marta Cuscunà was born in Monfalcone, a town marked both by the history of its shipyard industry and the consequences of asbestos exposure. A playwright and visual theatre performer, her artistic research intertwines activism, figure-based dramaturgy, and stage writing.
Her training began at Prima del Teatro – European School for the Art of the Actor, where she studied with masters such as Joan Baixas, José Sanchis Sinisterra, and Christian Burgess. After early international experiences across Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, she developed an authorial path that led her to create and perform works such as È bello vivere liberi! (2009), La semplicità ingannata (2012), and Sorry, Boys (2015), key milestones in a practice that combines civic theatre, irony, and visual devices.
In the following years, she further explored the relationship between mythic imagination, technology, and figure-based dramaturgy in works such as Il canto della caduta, Earthbound, and Corvidae. Sguardi di specie. From 2009 to 2019 she was part of Fies Factory / Centrale Fies. Since 2021 she has been an associate artist at Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa.
Written and performed by Marta Cuscunà
Freely adapted from Incantagioni by Mariano Tomatis
Set & lighting design Paola Villani
Assistant director and technical direction Marco Rogante
Photo © Alessandro Ruzzier
Production Etnorama – Cultura per nuovi ecosistemi
In co-production with Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa, CSS Teatro stabile di innovazione del Friuli Venezia Giulia, Centro Teatrale Bresciano, Teatro Stabile di Bolzano
With the support of Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia
