THE YELLOW WALLPAPER
Where: AIGAIA THEATRE NICOSIA
When: 26/11/2022 - 16/01/2023
Tickets: €12
Duration: 70'
Ages: All ages
Language: Greek
About the event:
The play is a collection of diary entries of a young woman who appears to be suffering from postpartum depression. Her husband-who is also her doctor- isolates her in a country house, intending to prescribe a rest cure for what he calls "a temporary nervous depression—a slight tendency to hysteria," a diagnosis common enough for women of that time. Locking her in the children's room of the house, he forbids her any creative work and imposes on her a strict diet and medication, as well as the use of electrotherapy. He also deprives her of contact with all her family members, even her baby.
More about the event:
With no other stimulus than the wallpaper in the room, the woman focuses on her designs and patterns, which gradually transform into an autonomous entity, with which the narrator will develop an obsessive relationship. The consequences of her confinement gradually emerge, while she seems to be on a journey of self-awareness, which will exceed - due to the specific circumstances - the limits of rationality.
Gilman's text is a feminist manifesto against the oppression of women and a sharp critique of the patriarchal society of the late 19th century. The author boldly highlights issues such as women's mental health and the stigma of mental illness, confinement and the imposition of control over the female body, the oppression of women through married life, the devaluation of female identity, women's lack of freedom of speech , the exclusion of women from work and intellectual creation.
