The Bride on International Women’s Day
- Sasha Tanoushka BCH IACT
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
A Sasha Tanoushka reflection on art, love, identity, and the mind
Watching The Bride on International Women’s Day felt profoundly aligned with the themes that shape so much of my own work. Art has the power to surface truths about the human nervous system that therapy alone sometimes cannot access. This production moved through questions of revolution, identity, and the deep human longing to be recognized and loved.
The performance invited the audience to sit with a difficult but essential question. What happens when a person refuses the identity that others have constructed for them?
The leading actors were exceptional and emotionally precise. Ida in particular delivered a striking performance. Her portrayal carried a delicate balance between vulnerability and awakening strength. There were moments where the character seemed almost suspended between confusion and clarity, as though consciousness itself was forming in real time. Ida did not feel like a passive creation. She felt like a being discovering her agency. Her body language and stillness conveyed a quiet revolution. It was the revolution of someone realizing that identity cannot be imposed. It must be lived and chosen.
To fully appreciate the emotional architecture of this piece, it helps to revisit the origins of the story. The narrative is rooted in the 1818 novel Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley when she was only eighteen years old. While the story is often framed as horror, it is actually a profound psychological meditation on abandonment, responsibility, and the human need for connection.
The creature created by Victor Frankenstein is not born violent. He is born curious. He learns language by observing humans. He experiences wonder. He also experiences devastating rejection. His deepest desire is simple. He asks for companionship so he will not have to live alone in a world that fears him.
From a therapeutic perspective this is where the story becomes deeply relevant to mental health. Human beings are relational creatures. Our nervous systems regulate through connection. Isolation and rejection destabilize the psyche. When love and belonging are denied, people can fracture internally. Rage, despair, and alienation often follow. The creature’s tragedy is not monstrosity. The tragedy is abandonment.
This is also where the story intersects with conversations about love and sexual freedom. The figure of the bride in adaptations of Frankenstein has often been treated as an object created to solve someone else’s loneliness. The Bride challenges this idea. It asks whether a being created for another’s desire has the right to choose her own path.
From my lens as a therapist, this question touches on something fundamental in relationships. Love cannot exist where autonomy is denied. Healthy connection requires freedom. When people are forced into identities, roles, or sexual expectations that do not align with their inner truth, the nervous system experiences distress. Authentic love only emerges when individuals are free to be fully themselves.
Art allows us to explore these dynamics safely. It invites the nervous system to process complex emotions through story and imagery. Theatre in particular creates a collective experience where audiences can witness vulnerability and transformation together.
Watching The Bride on International Women’s Day therefore carried symbolic weight. It reminded us that identity is fluid. That connection is essential. That love cannot be engineered or controlled.
It must be chosen.
And perhaps the deeper lesson of the Frankenstein story still speaks to us today. Creation carries responsibility. Whether we are raising children, building relationships, or shaping communities, we must remember that the beings we bring into the world do not exist to complete us.
They exist to become themselves.
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