The Mad Women’s Ball

DEBUT In 1885 Paris, elite society is looking forward to the Mad Women’s Ball, where the women institutionalized in the Salpêtrière asylum don their best finery to dance and perform for the attendees. The majority of patients have been committed by fathers or other family members for refusing to play the roles expected of them. One of them is Eugenie, a young woman unhappy with the prospect of having to become a mother, housekeeper, and wife; she confides a secret to her grandmother that, when shared with her father, gets her committed to the Salpêtrière. Eugenie tries to convince her ward nurse, Genevieve, that she doesn’t belong there. At first, Genevieve, hardened by years at the hospital and under the spell of the chief physician, Charcot, believes Eugenie is deluded and dangerous. But then Genevieve’s beliefs are challenged by the dawning revelations shared by Eugenie and the failures of Charcot to care for the patients. As the ball approaches and the excitement builds, the inmate and nurse are forced to confront the system that placed them at Salpêtrière.