The play opens on the two lead characters, Bella and Jack Manningham, played by Elizabeth Borst and Craig Fairbanks. Bella is very submissive and on edge, while Jack is very calm and controlling. He openly flirts with one of the maids, Nancy, played by Allison Horton, and seems to care little for his wife’s emotions.
He blames Bella for the disappearance of a picture frame from the wall, even though she denies knowing anything about it. A history of mental illness in Bella’s family is alludded to. Jack calls in the maids, Elizabeth, played by Ashley Hester, and Nancy, to question them. Neither know anything about it, and Jack returns to accusing his wife. When Bella finds the picture in the hall, Jack uses that as evidence that she hid it. He is angry and storms out of the house to “work.”
When a mysterious gentleman, who calls himself Sergeant Rough, played by John Alford, comes to call, he challenges Bella’s belief in her insanity. He reveals himself to be a detective investigating the murder of a woman that occurred fifteen years ago, and that he believes Jack Manningham to be the murderer, come back to the site of the murder to find the jewels he wasn’t able to get a hold of the first time around. The find the jewels, among other items that Bella supposedly misplaced, in a locked drawer in Jack’s desk.
Jack returns home to find that his desk has been broken into. He reacts violently, shoving Bella and beginning to choke her. Rough bursts into the room with two police officers in tow, and they arrest Jack. Asking them for a moment, Bella confronts Jack, who pleads with her to release him. She plays mind games with him, teasing him with the idea of freedom, but plays the mental patient, and refuses. Rough reenters the room, and drags Jack away, while Elizabeth comforts her mistress.
The play says several things about the nature of Victorian high society, namely in the realms of the roles of men versus women and social classes and how they interact. Women are shown as inferior to men, even when they assume positions of power. That power is only theirs because the men give it to them. Jack is very domineering, while Bella is very submissive. Even when Bella has the power over Jack, it is only because Rough had him tied up for her. Not even the strongest female character, Nancy, is immune to the dominance of Jack. When she thinks she’s seducing him, the reality is that she is being manipulated to his purposes.
The class conflict between the upper class and that of the servant class is prevalent throughout the story. Nancy is constantly showing her disdain for Bella, considering herself better than her social superior, and is given a substantial amount of liberty, even going as far as to bring one of her “suitors” into the house with her. Elizabeth, on the other hand, is very set in her position, doing as she is told and keeping her head down, even when Jack makes advances towards her.
The way the Victorians viewed mental health is shown with stark clarity in this show, though its inclusion is more subtle. The discussions of Bella being taken away, or put in the hospital because she is “sick” have a sense of finality. There’s almost the impression that they are speaking about putting down a rabid dog. The implication is that mental illness was untreatable, or that treatment rarely worked or ended poorly for the patient. This raises the stakes of the show, as the threat of Bella being sent away are constantly hanging in the air.
The show tells the story of a woman coming to terms with herself, and resisting the image of her that others have placed on her. In accepting the truth of her husband’s identity as a murderer and a thief, and standing up to him and defying his abuse, she matures, no longer being the scared little girl that she is at the beginning of the show. Her decisive action marks a new course for her life. While the play is bleak, the ending has hope that Bella’s life will get better.
