About the Project
Aloïse Corbaz was a Swiss dressmaker who was institutionalized because she imagined her self in a passionate romance with Kaiser Wilhelm. While in the asylum, she began painting using scraps of paper that ironed and sewed into large sheets. She created s body of work that is vibrant, sensual, and joyful where she was at the center, beloved and beautiful. She was “discovered” and became celebrated outside the asylum where she lived until her death at 77.
The play takes place when, at 63, Corbaz is being evaluated for possible release. The woman on stage sometimes speaks as Corbaz and sometimes as the contemporary artist/performer Susan diRende, the question of her “schizophrenia” being recast as meta-theater and uses modern and classical theories of mind to wonder if choosing joy over consensus reality isn’t sometimes the only sane course.
The stage starts out institutional white, but over the course of the performance transforms into a fairytale universe as Corbaz covers every surface with her drawings.
Learn More at susandirende.com/corbaz
Production Team
