An experimental extravaganza featuring ‘the bawdiest performance of the year’ (Exeunt Magazine, Ireland), The Patient Gloria is ‘very funny, very explicit and very sobering’ (Sunday Independent, Ireland). And therapeutic. It’s very therapeutic.
The Abbey Theatre is delighted to announce further details about The Patient Gloria, a co-production with Irish artist, Gina Moxley, which receives its UK premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer. This critically acclaimed production, written by and featuring Gina Moxley, with direction by John McIlduff, will run at the Traverse Theatre from 1 until 25 August 2019.
A box office hit during Dublin Theatre Festival in 2018, The Patient Gloria, is a provocative and timely meditation on therapy and female desire. Inspired by the 1960s real-life films Three Approaches To Psychotherapy (The Gloria films), the production is a mash up of re-enactment, real footage, live experience and punk gig.
1964, California. A nine year old girl, Pammy, asks the question, “Mommy, did you ever go to bed with anyone besides daddy?” The child’s mother, Gloria, recently divorced and struggling with her new single status, lies “No, honey.”
Gloria later wrote in her diary “What was I supposed to say? Of course, dear. Everyone does? Oh shit.”
Gloria’s discomfort with her own sexual desire became central to the The Gloria Films. This unique project was the idea of Dr. Everett Shostrum, a psychotherapist, who directed and produced the films, capturing content alongside three other eminent psychotherapists who each worked with Gloria.
The Gloria Films were made with the initial intention of distributing them to schools and colleges to give psychology students an insight into what is usually a private process. The films were subsequently shown in movie theatres and on TV, betraying the privacy of the patient Gloria.
Gina Moxley performs in the production, joining choreographer and performer Liv O’Donoghue, who plays the role of Gloria, with Jane Deasy on bass guitar.
Writer and performer, Gina Moxley, said,
I wish this show wasn’t necessary but when governments start meddling with women’s reproductive rights you know you’re heading for trouble. My whole life has been ring-fenced by cathedrals of misogyny and we are not out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot. Actually, we’re heading back into the woods, deeper and darker. Myself and the Abbey Theatre are psyched to be taking The Patient Gloria to the Edinburgh Fringe, the biggest, baddest arts festival in the world.
UK PREMIERE AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE, FROM 1-25 AUGUST 2019 AT THE TRAVERSE THEATRE