Mrs. Packard

In 1861, a woman named Elizabeth Packard was abducted from her Illinois home and placed in an insane asylum. This was requested by her husband, a strict Calvinist minister who thought his wife's ideas on theology were too liberal and wanted her committed. At the time, the law did not require her to be judged insane. If a husband wanted his wife locked up, it happened.

This is the true story told by Emily Mann in her play, Mrs. Packard, which is the last play of the McCarter Theater season. It is certainly a chilling tale, not only because of Mrs. Packard's wrongful imprisonment, but because of the deplorable state of mental health care at the time. Patients were simply locked up and offered no treatment, and the living conditions were beyond imagining. Some women were kept in wards that were in a complete state of filth, unbathed and no waste facilities.

This makes for keen outrage, but is it compelling drama? In this day and age, it would take a complete troglodyte to agree with how women were treated by their husbands and the law (it is interesting that the play takes place at the same time as the Civil War, when blacks became emancipated but women had a long way to go). But it seems to me that such an open and shut case doesn't make for a gripping play. As played by Kathryn Meisle, Mrs. Packard is emininently sane from her first entrance. There should be no doubt in any of the audience that she is being put away due to very minor differences in theological doctrine, and that she is a very intelligent, if headstrong, woman. So the play becomes a kind of nightmare, with the only suspense whether she gets out or not. A quick look a the program gives that away, so what we end up seeing on stage is a kind of documentary. A fascinating one, but the kind that preaches to the choir.

If this play had been written and produced a hundred years ago, it would have been a sensation, but today it is merely a history lesson. It is well staged and acted, particularly by Dennis Parlato, who plays Dr. McFarland, who Mrs. Packard thinks is her ally until she questions his opinions. Meisle is frequently brilliant, but at times (perhaps because it was a preview) seems to get lost in her lines. She is onstage almost the entire time, so it is a demanding role.

Despite any misgivings, this play is worth seeing if only to raise questions about how the mentally ill are treated today, and whether women have fully achieved the equality that a woman of Mrs. Packard's time couldn't even fantasize about.