Hysteria

By Alexandra Hart

CHARACTERS

Moll Flanders – 18thC cross-dresser and pickpocket

Nellie Bly – 19thC journalist and explorer

Zelda Fitzgerald – 1920s flapper and artist

Sylvia Plath – 1950s poet and author

Marsha P. Johnson – 1970s LGBTQ+ activist and drag queen

Man/orderly/judge/officer – no notable traits

All other male roles are multi-rolled by the five female actors

SETTING

The space is abstract, a conglomeration of several times and spaces. It is Bedlam, it is

Blackwell’s Asylum, it is Geneva Mental Institute, it is McLean’s Mental Hospital, and it is

Bellevue. It is no year; it is every year.

SCENES

Scene 1 – Prologue

Scene 2 – Flashback - Nellie’s arrest

Scene 3 – The arrival

Scene 4 – Flashback – Moll’s trial

Scene 5 – The symptoms

Scene 6 – Flashback - Zelda’s dancing

Scene 7 – The treatment

Scene 8 – Flashback - Sylvia’s baking

Scene 9 – The escape

Scene 10 – The bath

Scene 11 – Flashback – Marsha’s Cabaret

Scene 12 – The piano

Scene 13 – The release

Scene 14 – Modern day epilogue

SCENE 1

Prologue

A room in darkness. A match is struck, lighting a candle perched atop a piano. A darkened

figure seats themselves and an out-of-tune note is struck; then another, and another, until a

grating melody is slowly scratched out.

NELLIE: I’m not crazy. I’m not…

Her voice lilts with glee as she thrusts out a few more jolting notes.

NELLIE: Anybody there? I want out. I’m all healed. I’m fixed. I’m reset. Enough now.

Please? It’s enough, do you hear me? It’s over. I’m better. I’m all healed. I’m fixed, I’m firm,

I’m final, I’m, I’m –

NELLIE slams both hands on the keys, letting the discordant notes ring out.

ZELDA: We said there is no-one there.

NELLIE: We?

There is a pause as NELLIE takes in this information.

NELLIE: Me… Oh I see… me, it’s all me…

NELLIE stands up and shuffles around the space, lighting candles as she does so. The space

is slowly illuminated, and we see five hospital beds emerge. Moll is in a Tudor bed - a crude

mass of scratchy blankets and sheets. Nellie’s empty bed is Victorian - a cold, wrought-iron

frame. Zelda has a 1920s bed - in a faded Art Deco style. Sylvia’s bed is from the 1950s - a

divan with flouncy eiderdowns. Marsha has a dark mahogany bedframe, decked out with a

horrifically orange bedspread. Each woman is wearing a hospital gown from their period –

only subtle differences visible.

NELLIE: (laughing to herself) Well look what we have here. Isn’t this just marvellous...

ZELDA: Pardon me?

SYLVIA: Marvellous?

MARSHA: What’s wrong with you, woman?

NELLIE: Wonderful hallucination. Really top-notch imaginative potential.

MOLL: What?

NELLIE: You all. You’re me.

ZELDA: Not last I examined the situation, I assure you. I - am - Zelda. Do you recall?

MOLL: I am not doing any oft this reintroducing nonsens.

3SYLVIA: Come on, it’ll help her.

MARSHA: You’re such an old sourpuss, Moll.

MOLL: Welle, there you have ite. I’m Moll.

SYLVIA: (to Nellie) And do you remember who you are?

NELLIE: I’m Nellie. But I’m sure you already know that. Since you’re all me too.

MOLL: She has loste it.

ZELDA: Oh haven’t we all?

MOLL: Guess that be the ideya.

MARSHA: What’s she gon on about? Lighten up, woman.

ZELDA: She seems to believe we all reside inside her head.

SYLVIA: We don’t, do we?

MOLL: Oh, don’t be ridiculus, Sylvia.

NELLIE: Yes. Yes. Ridiculous is me. How did they get us then?

MARSHA: Get us? We be committed, darling.

NELLIE: Committed?

MOLL: Oh don’t go throwing fancy termes at heer.

SYLVIA: I wouldn’t quite consider it that.

ZELDA: Ward. Psychiatric facility. Hospital. Asylum. The vernacular is of no consequence.

The significance is that we are here.

SYLVIA: I hate the word ‘asylum’.

MARSHA: Don’t matter whether you like it none. You can change the words all you want

but that ain’t make no difference.

NELLIE: We’re in an asylum.

MOLL: Thate we are.

NELLIE: Then tell me how. How did I get here…

SCENE 2

Flashback

NELLIE: When I entered the asylum, I talked and acted just as I do in ordinary life. Yet

strange to say, the more sanely I talked and acted, the crazier I was thought to be by all…(1)

Two POLICEMEN and a LANDLORD enter. They cannot hear her narration, only see her

actions.

NELLIE: When the two policemen arrived, I pretended not to see them.

LANDLORD: She’s been carrying on like this all night. Something about lost trunks but she

didn’t have none when she arrived. She said she only wanted board for the night.

NELLIE: I kept weeping and wailing, throwing myself all over the room.

POLICEMAN 1: If she don't come along quietly, we’ll have to drag her through the streets.

NELLIE: I took no notice of them, I did not care about causing a scandal.

LANDLORD: I had no idea she’d turn out like this. She was quiet when she arrived, none of

this hysteria.

POLICEMAN 2: You’d better come with us, miss.

NELLIE: One policeman took either arm. Their grip was oddly sweaty, strangely clawing.

POLICEMAN 1: Keep the noise down. You’re giving me a bloody headache.

NELLIE: They escorted me in silence, a weep escaping my chapped lips every now and

again. I kept asking for my trunks.

POLICEMAN 2: Here we are. The express office.

NELLIE: The police station.

POLICEMAN 1: Nothing to fear.

NELLIE: Lies.

POLICEMAN 2: Your missing effects will be inside.

OFFICER enters and sits at a desk.

NELLIE: I was dragged through a pair of dark oak doors. An officer at the desk spoke in low tones to the policemen who kept me gridlocked between them.

OFFICER: Are you Nellie Brown? Where do you come from? (1)

POLICEMAN 1: We were called in to find her hysterical at the lodgings above the inn.

Something about missing trunks. Refused to quieten down when the Landlord asked her to. Refused to leave. Refused to be reasoned with.

OFFICER: Come along, Miss Brown. I will find your trunk for you.

NELLIE: He took me back through the streets. A number of passers-by offered taunting

remarks as the morning light started to flood in.

OFFICER: Here we are. The express office.

NELLIE: The courtroom.

OFFICER: Nothing to fear.

A JUDGE enters and sits at a desk.

NELLIE: I was pushed through another pair of dark oak doors. A judge was sitting at the

desk, the officer spoke to him in more hushed tones.

JUDGE: Come here. What is your name?

NELLIE: I told him it was Nellie Brown.

JUDGE: When did you come to New York?

NELLIE: I told him that I did not come to New York, for I could not have come to New York

when I was already in New York.

JUDGE: Come here, girl, and let me see your face.

NELLIE: I approached his desk. He lifted up my chin to see my face, moved a strand of hair from my eyes. It was almost tender, but for the fact he inhaled slightly as he did so.

JUDGE: What do you know about this girl?

OFFICER: I know nothing of her except that she went to the inn yesterday and asked to

remain overnight. She made a fuss over missing trunks and nothing could calm her.

JUDGE: Has she any money?

NELLIE: I went to answer but –

OFFICER: None on her person.

JUDGE: Poor child. She is well-dressed, and a lady. Her English is perfect, and I would stake everything on her being a good girl. I am positive she is somebody's darling.(2)

NELLIE: At this announcement, everybody laughed.

JUDGE: I am sure some-one is searching for her. Poor thing, I will be good to her.

OFFICER: Send her to the Island.

JUDGE: There has been some foul work here. I believe this child has been drugged and

brought to this city. Make out the papers and we will send her to Blackwells for examination. Probably in a few days the effect of the drug will pass off and she will be able to tell us what has passed..(3) Send for the doctor to examine her.

SCENE 3

In the asylum

An ORDERLY pushes on NELLIE, carrying a box of her effects.

ORDERLY: Here we are then.

He coughs pointedly and holds out his hand. NELLIE looks at him blankly.

ORDERLY: No use in here anyhow.

NELLIE finally understands his meaning. She reaches for a coin pouch from the box, and

hands over two coins.

ORDERLY: The rest won’t do you any good neither.

NELLIE: I need my money.

ORDERLY: You need to learn to do as instructed.

The ORDERLY closes his fist over the two coins and knocks the rest of the pouch out of

NELLIE’s hands. Several coins fall across the floor and the other women emerge to help her

gather them up.

MARSHA: Screw him, darling.

SYLVIA: Hush, he might still hear you.

NELLIE: (in the same lilting tone as earlier) Hear me, hear you – the voices are telling me to hear myself think…

MOLL: Stoppe this rite now. Enoughe is enoughe.

ZELDA: For heavens sake, Moll, simply help us gather the coins.

SYLVIA: She doesn’t know what she’s saying.

NELLIE: Say it to me, say it to myself…

MOLL: Stoppe it, stoppe it!

NELLIE: Stop the voices as voices wish to be stopped.

MOLL: Foolle.

A brief silence. NELLIE approaches MOLL and holds out her hands clasped together. MOLL

reaches up, NELLIE opens her hands and offers up the remainder of the coins.

A pause.

MOLL: (ashen) Thanke ye.

MOLL takes a few coins.

NELLIE: Moll?

MOLL: Yea?

NELLIE: Why are we here?

MOLL: I donte now about “we”. I am heer for picking pockets.

SYLVIA: (returning a coin to Nellie) That’s not why they put someone in an asylum, Moll.

MOLL: In for morale crimes – that’s what they said. Cross-dressing and alle that.

MARSHA: (also returning a coin to Nellie) And me, darling. Well, other way round I s’pose.

ZELDA: Must you always be so flippant, Marsha?

NELLIE: (to Zelda) You?

ZELDA: (returning the final coin) Self-committed for schizophrenia. As was Sylvia.

SYLVIA: I belong in here. Manic depression.

The women sit on the floor. NELLIE shares the coins between them.

NELLIE: I’m not mad. If you are not voices, then I am not mad. I need to get out, you must

help me get out.

MARSHA: Darling, we’re here for you, but ain’t no way to get out.

MOLL: Madde or note - they get you fore anithing they don’t like you doinge.

SCENE 4

Flashback

A consistory court for moral crimes. Men sit around in judgment.

MOLL: Dearly beloved Christen people. As Almighty God is the only creatour of all thinges

in heaven and earth, so it is reveled to us in his holy worde to be his pleasure and will that allhis creatures hold defence upon themselves.

So it is, good people, that I, Moll Flanders, otherwise known as Moll Frith, by the means and procurement of these magistrates before me in the Consistory Court, admit that I used the cloth of menkind to swindle goods freme customers of tavernes and innes.

I did nowingly and with intente committ these moral crimes under the eye of our lorde in

heavan. I adopted the guise of man to hyde my mortale form of woman, whiche our lorde did blesse me with according to his wille. I did create a fals image to passe off the strengthes of the man as those of myne own, contradycting the rightious Great Chein of Being. I admite, willingly and of myn own volition, thes female flaws of greit weakness, as is the wey of myn sex.

Seing it is a kinde of a divination or charming, expressedly forbidden by Gode's lawes and

the Quene's Majestie, I humbly to acknowledge and confesse my forsaid offence before you all. It is a sickness I hath committed, and I offer myself unto you for judgement.

SCENE 5

In the asylum

Night-time. A grunting, weeping noise is coming from SYLVIA’s bed.

ZELDA: Sylvia? Is that you, Sylvia?

MOLL: Leav her be, for gode’s sayke.

ZELDA: Sylvia? Sylvia? What troubles you?

NELLIE: What’s happening?

MOLL: Sylvia’s upe to something agein.

NELLIE: Again? What is again?

MARSHA: Come on now, darling. What be the matter?

SYLVIA says nothing, prompting ZELDA to approach her bed. She strikes a match, tracks the

blood creeping up Sylvia’s sheet leading to her right hand.

ZELDA: Oh no, oh Sylvia.

MOLL: Same as laste tyme?

NELLIE: What is it? What’s with all the noise? Voices too loud, too loud…

SYLVIA’s wails increase. ZELDA holds up the bloodied hand.

MOLL: Fetche a rag.

Something switches in NELLIE.

NELLIE: There’s so much blood.

ZELDA: Oh you sweet girl, why must you do this?

MARSHA: Don’t just sit there.

NELLIE: Should I fetch the orderly?

MARSHA: Don’t be stupid.

ZELDA: Do not even think it.

MOLL: Just finde somethyng to stoppe the bloode flow.

SYLVIA’s wails increase. She begins thrashing about on the bed. MOLL rushes to hold her

down.

11ZELDA: Hurry!

NELLIE: From where? There’s nothing here!

MOLL: Rip the sheyt.

NELLIE: Yes, yes, the bedsheet.

MARSHA: Don’t you take mine! I like them that nice dirty gray color they got gon on.

MOLL: Thise is notte the tyme for jokces.

NELLIE: It’s fine, it’s fine, we can use mine.

MOLL: Just do’t faste.

SYLVIA increases in violence. She lashes out and kicks MOLL in the face.

MOLL: Fucke.

ZELDA: Language!

MOLL: Language?! You trye keyping proper when your kiked in the nose.

ZELDA: Get back up here and help me!

MOLL: Fine, fine, I’m comyng. But I swear to God abov if she trys somethyng like that

again I’ll nock her oute the easy wey.

MARSHA: How’s about that bedsheet, Nellie?

NELLIE: Almost there. The material’s harder to rip than it looks.

MOLL: Come on!

NELLIE finally rips a strand of bedsheet and rushes over to SYLVIA.

NELLIE: Here, here, take it.

ZELDA: Sylvia, we need to tie up your hand.

MOLL: Don’t bothre explaining. Just do’t.

ZELDA: It cannot hurt to be kind.

MOLL: Yes it canne. I’ll do’t.

MOLL snatches the bedsheet and roughly wraps up SYLVIA’s hand.

12SYLVIA: No, no, stop it, let it bleed.

MARSHA: Come now, darling, calm down. It’s gon be alright.

MOLL: Oh shut it.

SYLVIA: Stop, stop. Let me go. Let me bleed.

NELLIE: (horrified) She did this on purpose?

MOLL: Of course she did’t on purpoys. What did you thinke had happend!

MARSHA: Come on now, darling. You gotta be tough to survive this place.

ZELDA: We have witnessed this before. Sylvia, Sylvia sweet girl…

ZELDA calms SYLVIA and starts to hold her.

NELLIE: Are you sure we shouldn’t fetch the orderly?

MOLL: Only if you wishe to make thyngs worse.

NELLIE: Isn’t this his job?

ZELDA: Do not fetch him. Come now, Sylvia, everything will be restored to order in the

morning, you’ll see.

MOLL: Don’t wast your breathe ly-ing to here.

NELLIE: How many times has she done this before?

MARSHA: Too many to count.

NELLIE: Suicide?

MOLL: Doesn’t hav the balles.

ZELDA: Oh stop it, Moll. No, Nellie, not suicide. Simply her writing hand.

NELLIE: Her hand?

ZELDA: She’s a poet.

MOLL: Was a poet.

MARSHA: She’s gon always be a poet. Even with a broke right hand.

SYLVIA: (in a daze) I will?

ZELDA: Yes, dear girl, you will.

13SYLVIA: So I can never escape it I suppose.

A beat.

MARSHA: Get rid of the match. Back to bed, y’all. Enough drama for one night.

NELLIE: Are you alright, Sylvia? Tell me if there’s anything I can do.

A pause. The women turn to face NELLIE.

ZELDA: How are you, Nellie? You do not appear as you did before.

MOLL: Sylvia’s alright. As are you, Nellie, are y’not?

ZELDA: What do you --

MOLL: She wase faking it. Weren’t you? Pretendinge to heer voices and alle thaet.

Beat.

NELLIE: Yes. I was.

ZELDA: But why would you –

NELLIE: I don’t want to talk about it. Sometimes it is simply easier.

The women reluctantly return to their beds; there is nothing more to be said.

SYLVIA: Nellie?

NELLIE: Yes, Sylvia?

SYLVIA: It’s nice to actually meet you.

SCENE 6

Flashback

A New Hampshire mansion. The aftermath of a dinner party, glasses tinkling. All guests are

male other than ZELDA. A drinks cabinet rests on the side.

ZELDA: The dinner was a bore, as ever. I watch as the other wives retreat into the side room. Hesitating. Purposeful. I survey the room, at the figures before my gaze. Each man a copy of the one sitting beside him, their smoke as thick as their plummy accents. They are rarely observed. They are always the ones watching. I linger behind, as if to make them the subjects of their own menagerie.

MAN: Darling? Refill.

ZELDA: Scotch?

MAN: Whiskey.

ZELDA pours her husband a drink, returns it to his outstretched hand.

MAN: New glass?

ZELDA: Of course.

ZELDA returns to the drinks cabinet, throws the whiskey out. She fills a new glass with the

same liquor.

MAN: Atta girl.

ZELDA: So what was it you were saying about the bonds, my love?

MAN: Oh there’s no need to bore you with such things. Why not head over to the drawing

room with the women?

ZELDA: Of course, my love.

ZELDA starts to leave.

MAN: Darling?

ZELDA: Yes?

MAN: Before you leave, why don’t you show us what you were rehearsing the other day.

ZELDA: From my private lessons?

MAN: Such talent is a waste in private.

ZELDA: Oh… I…

15MAN: Come now. It will be the perfect post-dinner entertainment. I’m sure these fine

gentlemen would like to see what I’ve been spending all my money on when I ignore their

sound advice on portfolio investment.

The men all chortle.

ZELDA: Of course, my darling, it’s just that I am not quite sure my ballet is ready for

performance.

MAN: Come now. An investment is an investment. I wish to see my dividends.

ZELDA: Please, my love. I’m not ready yet.

MAN: Surely you would not wish to make me ask again.

ZELDA: No, no.

MAN gestures to the piano.

MAN: If you would oblige, Gerald.

GERALD nods and sits himself at the piano.

ZELDA: My pointe shoes are inside the piano stool.

GERALD awkwardly removes himself as ZELDA takes out her pointe shoe box. She puts

them on in observed silence.

MAN: Ready?

ZELDA: Yes.

MAN: Strike up, Gerald.

GERALD starts up a jazz melody. ZELDA nervously begins to dance, her movements

staggered and painful. The piano tune speed increases as ZELDA struggles to remain in time with the music.

ZELDA: (to MAN) Please.

MAN says nothing.

ZELDA: Please, my love.

MAN stays stoic.

ZELDA: Darling, please. Please. Enough now.

MAN shakes his head.

ZELDA: As I continue to dance, a fire creeps into my feet. I wish it were a fire of passion, of

flames, of love for the art form. But these flames do nothing but sting. Every part of my body is stretched into attempted submission. It cries out against me, fights me with each

movement. We battle in twirls, my body and I, spinning and whirling as we scream against the other, a silent shouting match invisible to the eye, deafening to my ears.

So engrossed in my battle am I that I scarcely notice the gaze of those around me, witnesses to sobs they cannot see. Only one man pierces my field of vision. My husband sits before me, stony in his glare. He watches, he waits. I perform only for him.

SCENE 7

In the asylum

NELLIE: Why isn’t she back yet?

MOLL: Sometime it tyke a while for here to walk afterward.

NELLIE: It’s just electricity?

MARSHA: So they say.

NELLIE: Well I’ve never heard of anything like it.

MOLL: Don’t thinek I’d even seyn such a thyng ‘fore this place.

NELLIE: And when she comes back?

SYLVIA: She’ll be different. Quieter. It’ll take her a while to be like herself again.

NELLIE: Does it hurt her?

MARSHA: I ain’t know. You’d have to aks.

NELLIE: You’ve never thought to ask her that before?

SYLVIA: You’ll see when she gets back. It’s not like that.

The door opens. ZELDA is ushered in by the ORDERLY. She walks in a silent daze to her bed

and sits down.

NELLIE: Zelda, are you feeling alright?

ZELDA: Yes.

NELLIE: You’re back from your treatment?

ZELDA: Yes.

NELLIE: Can I get you anything?

ZELDA: No.

Beat.

NELLIE: So how was it, Zelda?

ZELDA: As ever.

NELLIE: If you don’t mind the question, Zelda, what’s it like?

ZELDA takes in a deep breath.

ZELDA: Arrows - through my bloodstream.

MARSHA: They still have to tie you down?

ZELDA doesn’t answer.

MOLL: Ye don’t have to telle us ‘bout it.

ZELDA: I do not mind.

Beat.

ZELDA: It feels as nothing else in this world.

NELLIE: How do they do it?

ZELDA: Two bits of metal - either side of my temple. They turn on the machine. As if…

reanimating a monster.

NELLIE: Frankenstein?

SYVLIA: Frankenstein was the name of the scientist. The monster had no name.

MARSHA: You ain’t no monster, Zelda.

ZELDA: They kill it.

NELLIE: You do seem much calmer…

ZELDA: Reborn - every time.

NELLIE: It sounds miraculous.

ZELDA: But now I am back...

MOLL: This place could muddy a saint.

ZELDA: Yet I am no longer a sinner. Pure - cleansed by the electricity.

NELLIE: So it doesn’t hurt? You don’t convulse?

ZELDA: Greatly.

NELLIE: Then why do you keep going back?

MOLL: You thinke she hath a choyce?

ZELDA: Choice is irrelevant.

MARSHA: Even though it hurts you?

ZELDA: It heals me. Beauty is pain – sanity too. Eradicate, empty, become a blank slate.

Beat.

SYLVIA: Maybe you should get some rest, Zelda.

ZELDA: Maybe. I can sleep now.

ZELDA lies down. The women disperse in subdued silence, SYLVIA staying behind to pull the

blankets over ZELDA. She kisses her gently on the forehead. The lights do not fade for far too

long.

Notes

1.  Nellie Bly, Ten Days in a Madhouse, (New York: Norman L. Munro Publisher, 1877), 2.

2. Nellie Bly, Ten Days in a Madhouse, 15.

3. Nellie Bly, Ten Days in a Madhouse, 15.