A: No, the play is under copyright. It was first published in 1976, and its copyright is actively held by the publisher, Samuel French (now part of Concord Theatricals).

: Mary is tormented by a Greek chorus-like ensemble known as the Furies . These ghost-like figures represent both the other asylum patients and figments of Mary's imagination that impersonate people from her past.

In August 1790, after five years of failed attempts to help her recover, Stephen Girard had his wife officially declared insane and committed to the cellar ward of the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, which was the city's only facility for the mentally ill. Historians note that Mary was pregnant at the time she was institutionalized, though the identity of the child's father remains unknown. The baby, a girl, was born while Mary was confined to the hospital and died five months later. Mary spent a quarter of a century in that institution before she died at the age of 56. In a final act of erasure, she was buried on the hospital grounds in an unmarked and unadorned grave, per her husband's wishes.

The genius of the script lies in its title. Who is truly insane? As Mary recounts her life—the forced marriage at 15, the systematic erasure of her identity, the cruelty of a man who saw her as property—the audience realizes that her "madness" is a rational response to unendurable grief. The play asks: Is screaming in a cage insane, or is building the cage the true madness?

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Based on actual historical events, the story follows Mary Girard, the wife of wealthy financier Stephen Girard. After Mary becomes pregnant by another man, Stephen uses his legal right as a husband to have her declared insane and committed to a "lunatic cell" in the basement of Pennsylvania Hospital.

The play breaks away from traditional realism, opting for a expressionistic style that mirrors Mary’s fractured psyche.

The script is popular in educational and theatrical circles for several reasons:

: Through these interactions, the play explores whether Mary is a sane woman being driven to madness by her environment or if she has truly lost her mind. By the end, Mary "grows rather convincingly into her diagnosis" as a means of escape. Characters in the Script