They called her insane. Then the voices answered.

Philadelphia. 1790.

Mary Girard has been committed to an asylum by her husband, Stephen Girard.
Her crime?

She became pregnant by another man.

Declared legally insane and stripped of control over her own life, Mary finds herself confined within the walls of the Pennsylvania Hospital. Restrained and isolated, she insists that she is not mad.
Then the voices begin.

Five mysterious figures—the Furies—emerge around her. At once tormentors, witnesses, memories, and manifestations of Mary’s increasingly fractured consciousness, they transform into the people who shaped her life: her husband, her mother, her keepers, and others whose words continue to haunt her.
Again and again, Mary is forced to relive the choices, betrayals, humiliations, and injustices that brought her to this room.

She fights them.
She argues with them.
She tries desperately to separate memory from reality.
But in a place where everyone has already decided that she is insane, how long can she continue believing otherwise?

As the Furies close in and the boundaries between past and present begin to collapse, Robertson transforms Mary’s story into a disturbing psychological examination of power, marriage, institutionalization, gender, mental health, and the terrifying consequences of taking away someone’s voice.

A TRUE STORY. A THEATRICAL NIGHTMARE.
Mary Girard was a real woman.

The wife of wealthy Philadelphia merchant Stephen Girard, Mary was committed to the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1790 and would spend the remainder of her life institutionalized.

Playwright Lanie Robertson, whose works include Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, takes this piece of American history and transforms it into something far more immediate than a traditional historical drama.

Rather than simply recount Mary’s story, Robertson places us inside her experience.
The Furies become voices.
Memories become people.
The past invades the present.

And the audience is left to experience the increasingly unstable world through Mary’s eyes.
The result is an intimate, unsettling theatrical experience about a woman fighting to maintain ownership of the one thing that remains hers:
her own mind.

AUDIENCE ADVISORY
The Insanity of Mary Girard explores mature and potentially distressing subject matter, including involuntary institutionalization, historical treatment of mental illness, psychological abuse, misogyny, pregnancy, marital conflict, and emotional distress.
The production contains intense psychological themes and moments that may be unsettling for some audience members.
Recommended for mature audiences.

A LEE STREET LAB PRODUCTION
Lee Street LAB shows create space for bold, intimate theatre that deserves to be seen. These productions shine a light on compelling stories, challenging ideas, and unique theatrical experiences that may live outside the traditional Main Stage season.

With an emphasis on artistic exploration, meaningful storytelling, and opportunities for local artists, LAB allows Lee Street Theatre to take creative risks, amplify important voices, and invite audiences to experience theatre in a more immediate and thought-provoking way.

The Insanity of Mary Girard embodies that mission — a haunting, intimate work that asks us to look closer, listen harder, and consider whose voices history has chosen to silence.