There’s Nothing You Can Do

Written by Cole Hayley
Directed by Chelsea Dab Hilke

LSPU Hall | May 7-10, 2025 | Tickets here

Reviewed by Caleb Browne

“Thus the cause of the disease, chorea lasciva, is a mere opinion and idea assumed by the imagination, affecting those who believe in such a thing. This opinion and idea are the origin of the disease both in children and adults.” 

— Paracelsus, Von den Krankeiten

Contrary to the then popular notion that the dancing plague was a curse brought upon the town by either St. Vitus or St. John the Baptist, Paracelsus, the Swiss physician and philosopher, argued that there was a psychosomatic cause to this phenomenon. As such, he was the first to refer to it by the name choreomania. In other words, that ol’ dancing plague was all in their heads.

There’s Nothing You Can Do, written by Cole Hayley and directed by Chelsea Dab Hilke, recontextualizes this dancing plague or choreomania in modern times. The play opens with Miriam (Nora Barker), who just submitted her thesis on an outbreak of choreomania in 1518, monologuing as she begins to dance uncontrollably. What should be a satisfying moment for her is more bitter than sweet as she ruminates on the passing of time and this newfound dizzying freedom. On the pretext of celebrating, Miriam invites some old friends to party. As Miriam attends to something upstairs, we are introduced to the brilliantly cast ensemble of characters. First enters Pierre (Joel Stead), a junky for adrenaline and a myriad of substances, set to go out on his own terms; followed by Blair (Mallory Clarke), a sex worker who only seems to have a good time with a straw up her nose; and Syd (Jeremy Nolan), the monotone skeetheart drug dealer (who, I might add, is a deceptively deep character brought out by Nolan’s nuanced performance). Then enters Roman (Evan Walsh), Blair’s jealous ex who has drunk the capitalist Kool-aid. Seemingly putting a stop to the party is Joey (Colin Furlong), Miriam’s older brother, a successful lawyer who has returned home to defend his parents’ case. What ties these characters together, besides being friends, past flings, current flings, and potential flings, is that they are all somewhere along the line of their quarter-life crisis. The dancing plague becomes a clear and potent metaphor of their shared crisis. Just as Paracelsus argued about the real dancing plague, the dancing plague of There’s Nothing You Can Do is a physical manifestation of the emotional turmoil of these 20-somethings, soon to be 30-somethings.

This brings me to the physicality of the play. With movement direction and choreography by Lynn Panting, the show is physically intense, crescendoing in the spastic involuntary dancing of choreomania. This dancing is accompanied by original music written for the show by the local duo CUERPOS that works in tandem to create the manic atmosphere.

The visuals are also brought to life by the incredible environmental storytelling. The costume design by Elizbeth Perry, that ranges from Pierre’s eclectic derby helmet to the frocks of a medieval woman, and the set design by Jawon Kang comes together to build a cohesive world for these characters to exist in.

There was part of me, perhaps the part of me that finds myself in the same position as some of these characters, that wanted a resolution to the existential anxieties. I wanted to leave the theatre with answers to my quandaries, but I think an answer would be disingenuous. Though the play is at times witty, absurd, and hilarious, the beauty of it to me is that it did not give a cheap, comfortable answer to the questions it posed. It was comfortable with the best answer being Syd’s eloquently phrased “fuck it.”