Beau Meyer
Anna Pfefferkorn as Nellie Bly on stage.
Anna Pfefferkorn as Nellie Bly in the Music Theatre of Madison production "Ten Days in a Madhouse."
Pioneering investigative journalist Nellie Bly rose to national fame in the late 1870s when she infiltrated the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island in New York, and wrote about the horrifying experience in vivid detail. The account of her ordeal was published by Joseph Pulitzer in his newspaper the New York World, and later as a self-contained book — Ten Days in a Mad-House — which is also the title of Music Theatre of Madison’s world premiere production, playing now in the Play Circle theater at the Memorial Union.
Bly’s exploits have already inspired dozens of biographies, novels, movies, and at least three other plays and musicals; she has been memorialized in a statue and even on a postage stamp.
This commission, through MTM’s Wisconsin New Musicals Cycle, adds to the titles detailing Bly’s exposé of the deplorable conditions facing women who were separated from society for good reason, or no reason at all, in a squalid asylum.
Featuring the talents of Madison creatives Karen Saari (book and lyrics) and Jennifer Hedstrom (music and lyrics), the new work has been shepherded through a steady development process over the past three years with a reading in 2019, followed by a virtual workshop during the COVID-19 pandemic. The fully staged production, directed by MTM founder and executive director Meghan Randolph, is now open and runs through Aug. 27.
There is a great deal to like about this new musical, including the subject — a larger than life, spunky girl reporter breaking down barriers, exposing corruption, and using her pen to make a positive difference in the world. The voices of the 14-member cast are also universally strong, bringing Saari and Hedstrom’s work fully to life in both solos and group numbers.
Anna Pfefferkorn is an unsinkable, energetic Nellie Bly; part Anne of Green Gables, part Nancy Drew. Underneath a black straw hat and Bly’s signature plaid coat, Pfefferkorn’s vibrant auburn hair hangs down her back in a long braid and frames her face, full of plucky optimism and determination. Her lovely soprano sails easily over the audience as she sings about her mission to report the shocking truth of malnutrition, mistreatment, disease and neglect that lies behind the asylum walls.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is the cold-hearted Nurse Grupe, played with grim resolve by Liz Griffith. She does her best with the material, presenting the joyless, power-hungry ward director as a steely cog in an enormous, misogynistic machine. And Erica Halverson’s strong voice and impeccable comic timing bring some levity to life in the mental institution, believe it or not. As Sarah Fishbaum, Halverson embodies an eccentric mother figure who serves insect-riddled bread and watery tea to the other patients as if she’s presenting a gourmet feast, fantasizes about a day when the men who have put them there will get their due, and even encourages Nellie to think of the women at Blackwell Island as a chosen family.
Musically, Hedstrom’s melodies are bouncy and modern, contrasting with several folk songs from the period that are interspersed throughout the show. Saari’s book sprinkles facts from Bly’s life in with character sketches of the individual patients, illustrating that while some were physically or mentally ill, many of those confined on Blackwell Island were simply poor immigrants, non-English speakers, orphans, or unconventional women who had been discarded by their families.
While these in-depth introductions to inmates are interesting, they don’t create a strong through-line. Instead the musical as a whole feels amorphous, with little urgency moving the story forward. Ironically, the most interesting episodes in Nellie Bly’s story, with the most action and conflict, are only referenced in exposition during the show — such as Nellie receiving the dangerous undercover assignment from Pulitzer in the first place, feigning insanity, then being committed by several doctors who pronounce her an incurable lunatic. Once inside the asylum there is little build, little doubt about the outcome, and few characters with any agency. The play becomes an endurance test — Nellie’s only challenge is to wait out her 10 days before she is rescued.
Similarly, most of the egregious abuses at Blackwell’s are talked about instead of shown. The audience hears about rat-infested, filthy cells that reek of disease and patients packed together in tiny rooms, but they see a large, clean, bright stage peopled with women singing around a piano. The physical abuse that evidently ran rampant in the asylum is depicted only in a fistfight between evil Nurse Grupe and Nellie that feels like a schoolyard scuffle. And while patients scream occasionally, one sings songs about death, and one has a terrible cough, most seem perfectly healthy, in great contrast to Bly’s description of patients’ conditions in her articles.
Erin S. Baal’s simple, three-platform set design and monochromatic costumes by Randolph and Sharon White don’t help convey the time period, the specific sense of place, or the conditions described in the Bly’s exposé. Instead, the often static cast simply merges into a pale swath of gray in front of bright, oversized windows.
The most successful part of the production is a vivid bath scene where patients are made to line up, undress to their slips, and submit to being dunked in ice-cold water by the nurses. The accompanying song, “Bottom of the River,” is equally powerful as the women channel their anger and helplessness into the haunting, percussive ballad.
As I mentioned earlier, there is a great deal to like about this original musical and kudos go to the entire creative team for bringing it to this stage of development. Hopefully after the run closes, they can make further refinements that will make this important story more visceral and more theatrical.
