“I was looking for good scripts and decided to go off the beaten track and see if there was something that was free of copyright that could be adapted,托尼·维兹纳说, 他是尔湾康考迪亚大学戏剧系的教授.
他寻找维多利亚时代的冒险故事，发现的大多是关于士兵和冒险者的书. 后来他读到了《博彩平台网址大全》, which was written in serial form for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World newspaper before being published as a book in 1887. Bly (real name: Elizabeth Cochran) was an aspiring journalist who accepted an editor’s challenge to have herself declared insane so she could get into a mental institution on Blackwell’s Island (now Roosevelt Island) in New York City and write about what she saw. 她关于精神病院虐待的文章使她成为名人, and caused the city of New York to give $1 million more per year for the care of the insane.
康考迪亚大学欧文分校校友凯蒂·福吉亚诺15届, 现在在芝加哥的一楼剧院工作, 很早就被招去当编剧了吗, 帮助维兹纳在对话中想象和创造一个真实的剧本世界, 设置和行为.
“因为我们是从一本书开始的, 不是脚本, 我们必须弄清楚哪些需要虚构，哪些应该保持真实,福吉亚诺说. “我们举办了研讨会。. Professor Vezner would write chunks of text and I would come in with background on variations of mental disorders and some history of the treatment, 我们会即兴创作一些场景.”
福吉亚诺说，《博彩平台网址大全》是她受邀担任编剧的第一个大项目.
她说:“能有这样的经历是我莫大的荣幸. 虽然她在电影制作前就毕业了, 她在这部剧中的工作帮助她在圣地亚哥的剧院开始了全职工作, 在芝加哥和路易斯维尔，她帮助开发了35部新剧的选角, 作为副导演, 作为制作人.
“Vez has such a great knack for inspiring people to delve into what they’re passionate about,福吉亚诺说.
在那些最初的研讨会之后, the process of adapting Madhouse slowed as Vezner pondered plot and presentational difficulties. 然而，当学生们听到这个项目的风声时，他们总是表达出兴奋之情. 戏剧专业的Kyleigh Hoye ' 18协助Vezner与剧本作为实习的一部分, 并在剧中表演.
“他一告诉我这个女人的故事, 我读了整本书，意识到这是一个应该被讲述的重要故事,霍伊说。.
She and other students pressured Vezner to finish and present the play before they graduated, and Vezner’s colleagues encouraged him to announce that the play would be part of the 2017-18 theatre season before the script was finished.
“Having a deadline was a really good thing to move the script out of the research and workshop phase,维兹纳说.
障碍仍然. 首先，精神病院里的精神疾病看起来和听起来是什么样子? 他们怎么能准确地描绘它呢?
Hoye was given the task to meet with professor Elizabeth Vega in 欧文康考迪亚大学’s nursing department to gain insight into the mental disorders that characters would have, 以及在舞台上的表现, 身体和听觉.
“我问了一些问题，比如‘低水平精神分裂症和高水平精神分裂症是什么样子的? 或者是精神分裂症和妄想症的结合? 这将如何体现??’”Hoye说. 然后，她为每位女演员制作卡片，告诉她们如何表现出这种失调.
“如果有人听到声音，他们听到的是什么? 它是从哪里来的? 什么样的画面进入他们的脑海?维兹纳说. “一旦你给年轻人一个工作的框架，他们的想象力就会变得疯狂. 他们在我们的精神病院创造了一种全新的文化和环境. 他们在治疗病人的疾病方面有一种真正的主人翁感.”
Part of creating that environment involved a first rehearsal that was “very irregular,霍伊说。. 维兹纳指定了五名学生扮演护士，其余的都是精神病院的病人. He instructed the patients, “Do everything you can to not be taken to the other side of the room. Go.”
The result was “we had to put down our social norms and be very primal and do everything we could to not be taken to the other side,霍伊说。. “At first it felt strange, but we had to realize you can’t be self-conscious doing this show. 打破了僵局.”
接下来的挑战是如何巧妙地描绘收容所生活的丑陋一面, particularly some of the treatments which amounted to nothing less than physical and sexual abuse.
我们做了大量关于女性精神病人在那一天是如何被治疗的研究.
“我们做了大量关于女性精神病人在那一天是如何被治疗的研究,维兹纳说. “大多数学生的时间都花在了这上面, 想知道治疗是什么样的, 使用内莉书外的资料.”
They learned that in the 1800s it was believed that women became hysterical when fluid built up in their wombs. 所谓的治疗从不体面到精神创伤都有. 如何描述这些?
“这是一个非常重要的决定:如何描绘性侵犯的场景, 原因显而易见,霍伊说。. “我的想法是，我们可以把它做得很有诗意，这样就不会是徒劳的. But Professor Vezner said something important: ’We can’t sugarcoat this and pretend it was something poetic. 但我们也不能让它毫无意义.’”
“这是我最担心的，”维兹纳说. “If we ran into a problem where we couldn’t tell this story fully and still protect our students from feeling compromised, 我们遇到了麻烦.”
They decided to present the treatments in silhouette behind a curtain while the treatment method was described medically to the audience by actresses playing nurses.
因为有些材料很重, 维兹纳发现，用一种叫做“情绪冷静”的技巧来结束排练很有帮助, to “brush off any darkness so students could go back to normal life without carrying that.“它包括抖胳膊和腿, 深度同步呼吸, 俯卧和集体祈祷.
维兹纳说:“这就是康科迪亚成为做这件事的完美场所的原因。. “It’s not just shaking it off and breathing, but everybody can pray together and support each other.
这种精神元素增加了一种更重要的支持.”
Students continued to be deeply involved in the creation of the play as opening night approached.
“有时候我会众包他们的意见并询问, 从你的角色的角度来看应该发生什么?’”维兹纳说. “他们看到了剧本的流畅性. 你可以插队或换队. 他们中的许多人都是第一次在这种情况下工作, as opposed to a script we get from a publishing house and hold as sacred because the contract says you can’t change the text.”
The story showed Bly’s inner conflict as she tried to rescue inmates she befriended in the asylum, 困难的是, 真实的结果. 从历史上看, 布莱的报纸文章发表后, a grand jury investigation revealed that many of the women in her book were no longer there and that the abuses had been cleaned up. 一些人认为收容所迅速做出改变是为了避免惩罚, 布莱的一些朋友被藏起来了，甚至被杀了.
“To simultaneously be this hero who raised $1 million for insane treatment and have people you cared about tucked away, 要么被杀，要么被运走, 你知道你有责任，因为你在报纸上曝光了这件事,维兹纳说.
The play’s program spelled out for the audience exactly which parts were fictionalized and which were historical fact.
“We wanted the audience to have no reason to suspect that the story was made up or that we made these situations worse than they were,霍伊说。. “这让它更可信.”
演员包括二十名女性和四名男性. The main lesson from Bly’s reports for Hoye was that “So many people were not actively doing the hurting, 但我们却袖手旁观，视而不见. It’s important to see these plays and make an extra effort to see that we have to do the right thing and not stand by when evil things happen.”
“这是一个挑战吗? 是的，这是一个巨大的挑战，”福吉亚诺说. “(但)我喜欢看它是如何发展的. There was something so thrilling when Vez announced he was going to actually produce the play this year. 看到成品真的是一份礼物.”
每场演出都以与观众的问答环节结束. Hoye’s favorite response came from a girl who said, “Thank you for doing a play about the real stuff.”
维兹纳对学生们的投入感到自豪，因为他们让《博彩平台网址大全》栩栩如生.
“学生们对此有很大的影响，”他说. “在研究期间给我提供观点是非常宝贵的. And I learned a lot from them in rehearsal and made adjustments as I saw and heard it out loud. 现在这些角色身上有很多他们的个性.”
他们将来可能会尝试另一种原创, and Vezner hopes it will be written by one of his colleagues in the Concordia theatre department—with student help.