New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily “updates” have become must-see TV these days.  Cuomo gives factual descriptions of coronavirus developments in his state with straight-forward clarity.  Like a favorite teacher, he reminds us often that the pandemic brings out both the best and the worst in us.  Our best are the medical, rescue, grocery, and delivery people—they are our heroes.  The worst are those spewing rage-Tweets and flinging responsibility to others. Witnessing angry tantrums on the national stage made me think of famous mad scenes I’ve seen over the years.  Donald Trump can’t hold a candle to Maria Callas!

Opera is one of the best sources for “mad scenes.”  Opera composers were expected to write show-stopping arias for reigning prima donnas, and La Divina was among the best. Callas’s three octave range covered the terrain from bel canto to coloratura, and she had astonishing dramatic flair. In Act 2 of Puccini’s Tosca (left), Callas pulled out all the theatrical stops as her character (Floria Tosca) protected herself from the advances of the villainous Scarpia. She kills him with a knife as she sings, “Vissi d’Arte”—“I lived for art, I lived for love.”  Stab-stab-stab.

Dame Joan Sutherland won international acclaim with her 1961 Met debut in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (right), Lucia despairs at being forced into a marriage with Arturo, whom she doesn’t love, and in the Act 3 mad scene, sings “Spargi d’amaro pianto” to her beloved Edgardo:  “Sprinkle with bitter tears on my earthly remains.” She promises to meet him again in heaven.  The cabaletta is written to allow sopranos to interpolate their own trills and runs, and Dame Joan did so exquisitely before ending on a glittering high F.

Opera isn’t alone in expressing mayhem.  Madness has made boffo appearances in musical theater, and for me, one of the most memorable examples is Rosalind Russel (left), in her final scene in the movie version of Gypsy, where she walks down the runway of an empty theater and sings the wrenching Jule Styne/Stephen Sondheim composition “Rose’s Turn”:  “Everything’s coming up roses/this time for Me! For me! For me! For ME!”

The Oscar-winning 1950 movie Sunset Boulevard is a full-length portrait of madness.  Directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, the film features Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a silent movie star so immersed in her past glory that she has no sense of “present.”  She latches on to a young screenwriter (played by William Holden), and tells him “We had faces then….” The cast includes such other silent movie figures as director Erich von Stroheim as the butler Max, a cameo by Buster Keaton, and  with director Cecil B. DeMille and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper appearing as themselves. 

Holden led Norma on by promising he’s writing a screenplay for her, but when she discovers he’s lying, she shoots him.  The movie’s finale is a mad scene supreme (above):  as police and reporters crowd at the foot of her grand staircase, Norma pauses above until Max shouts, “ACTION!”  She slowly descends, and—misconstruing the line-up of newsreels cameras waiting to record her arrest—proclaims, “All right, Mr. DeMille. I’m ready for my close-up.”

Another classic movie conveys a totally different “madness.” A Night at the Opera (1935), was the Marx Bros. first film at MGM, and arguably the best of the thirteen they made together. Written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskin, ‘Opera’ starred Groucho, Harpo, and Chico, with a supporting cast that included Kitty Carlisle and the hapless Margaret Dumont.  The famous ‘stateroom scene’ is pure slapstick madness, with the Marx Bros. cramming a vast number of shipboard travelers into their tiny stateroom, and then ordering innumerable hard-boiled eggs which the shipboard crew keeps delivering.

Alice asks, “How do you know I’m mad?”  “You must be,” says the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

One of the most enduring movie mad scenes originated in a classic work of children’s fiction. The Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s 1865, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, features a whacko tea party that Alice comes upon when she falls down the rabbit hole. The March Hare and the Dormouse are attending the tea party, and at first Alice is transfixed by the Mad Hatter’s riddles and nonsense, such as his recitation “Twinkle, twinkle little bat! How I wonder what you’re at!” 

Carroll based his “mad hatter” on reality:  workers in England’s hat industry used mercury in making hats, and constant exposure to mercury rendered many of the workers “mad” with dementia.  Carroll’s Mad Hatter was originally drawn by John Tenniel (above), and has since been portrayed by actors ranging from Edward Everett Horton to Johnny Depp.  In the 1951 Disney animated version, the Mad Hatter was voiced by Ed Wynn.

Mad scenes are a part of life.  When Alice escapes from the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, she tells the Cheshire Cat, “But I don’t want to go among mad people!”  The Cat replies, “Oh, you can’t help that. We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”  Alice asks, “How do you know I’m mad?”  “You must be,” says the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

By Amy Henderson, Contributing Writer