by Chloe Whitehorn

Mad River Theatre Company, Directed by Chloe Whitehorn​​
TK Fringe Festival (August 2025)

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"If you thought Shakespeare’s Hamlet was dramatic, wait until you see Chloë Whitehorn’s. Madness Lies, presented by Mad River Theatre, is another sleek, stylized Shakespearean takedown in the vein of last year’s The Fall After Midsummer — this time, darker and more challenging. Written and directed by Whitehorn, Madness Lies follows Lettie (Shannon Donnelly) and Leah (Jennifer Verardi) as they find themselves on a wellness retreat of sorts. Lettie is the picture of burnt-out misery — underneath the snarky feminist jabs, there’s a good dash of the classic sadboy-prince-of-Denmark sulk that keeps our protagonist recognizable. Leah is more of a mystery — at first glance, the moniker suggests a direct correlation to Ophelia, but we soon begin to suspect that there’s more to this chatty, fun-fact-fixated character than meets the eye.
 

Donnelly and Verardi play off each other’s moods with great sensitivity, and the biting dialogue snaps between humour, pain, whimsy, and trauma in a way that seems both effortless and increasingly distressing. I’ve learned never to go to a Whitehorn play without scanning every line for double and triple meanings, and I’m always drawn in by her methodical foreshadowing. 
 

This show was no exception, and it kept my mind whirring for the full hour as plot twists and layers of meaning unfolded. For audience members who prefer not to think this hard, Madness Lies may be inaccessible by the end — although the ’80s movie references, nods to famous Shakespeare lines, jabs at wellness culture, and zingers about patriarchy appear often enough to draw regular laughs. 
 

It’s difficult to write about this play without betraying its secrets — which feels ironic, in a way, as the crux of the story is about the deadly consequences of women being forced to hold in the truth. I’ll leave it at this: if your body is keeping a heavy score, Madness Lies might be cathartic, or it might be a little much to take. If you can handle the darkness, though, it’s well worth venturing into this haunted piece of work."
--Haley Sarfeld, Intermission Magazine

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"Mad River Theatre’s Madness Lies by Chloë Whitehorn features upsetting truths about the historical (and unfortunately still relevant) mistreatment of women using mental health practices. Like much of Whitehorn’s writing, the story is complex and not served to the audience on a silver platter, but for those willing to dive into the intriguing chaos it was a powerful and well researched piece bringing to light this real world issue."--Aiden Robert Bruce, Kingston Theatre Alliance

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"On the surface, the show is a dark comedy about two very different (women) coping with loss. But beneath that, Whitehorn’s script takes you somewhere deeper, into the long and troubling history of women’s mental health treatment... In typical Whitehorn style, the dialogue manages to explore serious topics like how insanity was misused, and the real plot is revealed much closer to the end... Madness Lies is riveting, thoughtful, and not afraid to explore deep murky history." --Malobi Elueme, Kingston Theatre Alliance

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