Mad Women's Ball Lines - Jeanne

Cincinnati Fringe Festival 2026, InBocca Performance

(Scene 1) Addison: Menses!

Asthma!

(Scene 3) Therese: Who are those women?

They’re Charcot’s royalty.

Camille: If the Salpetriere was US Weekly—

They would always be on the cover. That one there, that’s Genvieve.

Therese: And that one?

That’s Augustine. She’s totally rich because her doctors give her so much Ether. Augustine knows everybody’s business and everyone’s secrets. She uses that to get more meds.

Estelle: They’re full of secrets!

And hysteria takes a human form in Blanche.

Camille: She’s the one that teaches the new girls.

The star. Those other two are just her little workers.

(All together) Blanche.

How do I even begin to explain Blanche?

Camille: I hear she has two jade womb necklaces.

I hear she does the best hypnotized photos

Therese: I hear she actually gets to go outside.

One time, she met Sigmund Freud at a demonstration, and he told her she was pretty.

(Scene 4) Charcot: This grand asylum of human misery! I turned it into the wonderland that you see before you.

Is Freud here tonight? He was here last year.

Addison: Good. He reminds me of my mother.

Charcot: Careful.

I like it here.

Charcot: This illness of more than a millennia, which has plagued womankind since the days of Aristotle?

Ooo!! Ooo!! Hysteria is an illness of being a woman. A predilection for drama and deception—

Genvieve/Camille: Somnambulism!

What is somnam…sommanamb…

Charcot: Perhaps a demonstration?

(Scene 5) This place is odd, but at least no one hits me. They said it’s called St. Vitus’s Dance; my limbs move without permission. I think it saved me. Mother was disappointed she’d lost her meal ticket—no one likes a courtesan with thrashing limbs. But to me, this isn’t a hospital, or a prison—to me, this place is Eden.

I do love the balls and the soirees! They let us dance, oh, how I love to dance! Afterwards, my whole body is quiet and still. I feel cured. Some day, I’m going to dance at the Moulin Rouge!

I can’t tell if these girls are actually hysterical, but the ones who are the most consistent are the favorites. It is hilarious to see the pride on the faces of those crazy girls as they’re chosen by the Master.

Why do I assist Charcot? Because I don’t interest him otherwise.

(Scene 14 into 15) Camille: Do you feel good about that?

Look. We stand before you, the Mad Women of Paris. You know us. You’ve paid your sou. You’ve entered our theatre. You gasp and applaud as we contort our bodies into knots.

Blanche: You fight for your invitations. You beg for our autographs, pieces of our hair, the lace of our skirts. When we perform, we are a trophy. When we lose control, a liability.

But behind our backs, you wipe your brow, sigh in relief, and thank God you aren’t one of us.

(Scene 17) Charcot: …Are you not entertained?

Jean-Martin Charcot, renowned throughout the medical world. He was called the “Father of Neurology”. He never thought of his work as abusive or cruel, but work that needed to be done to advance the neurological field.

Therese: We know some of these women did enter the Salpêtrière with what today would be classified as nervous system disorders and PTSD. Their symptoms worsened once inside.

Charcot pursued scientific answers…but did the end justify the means? He signaled to the world that women’s illnesses were a result of their gender.

Camille: Smile!

Exercise!