| . | 12/08/2009
In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play
By: Victor Gluck
Michael Cerveris and Laura Benanti in a scene from In the Next Room or the vibrator play
(Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
Just after Thomas Edison and before the advent of Sigmund Freud, male doctors treated female patients for “hysteria,” using a new therapeutic electrical appliance called the vibrator. The results were called “paroxysms.” What these doctors didn’t seem to understand was that what they were dealing with was the absence of sexual fulfillment caused by lack of sensitivity on the part of nineteenth century husbands. This was an age when women went into marriage knowing nothing of their bodies or of sexual relations. As future generations were to discover, both men and women must be responsive to each other’s needs.
Playwright Sarah Ruhl who seems to reinvent herself with each new play has taken these historic facts of the 1880’s for the background to her first Broadway play, In the Next Room or the vibrator play. This humorous, engrossing, and ultimately very moving play has been given an excellent production by Lincoln Center Theater at the Lyceum and by director Les Waters who has directed Ruhl’s work before. The accomplished cast is led by Michael Cerveris and Laura Benanti, previously best known for their work in musicals, who are absorbing as a loving doctor and his wife who may be in need of the very services he offers.
From the evidence of the four Ruhl plays to reach New York in the last few years, no two are similar. In fact, not only have the contents of The Clean House (seen at Lincoln Center), Eurydice (The Second Stage), Dead Man’s Cell (Playwrights Horizons) and now In the Next Room been dissimilar, but even their theatrical forms have been vastly different as well. This latest play is the most conventional of the four in form, a traditional one-set comedy drama presented as a nineteenth century drawing room comedy. However, in its content, it is the most adventurous, and as a result may well be Ruhl’s best play to reach New York so far, as well as the best new play this fall.
Ruhl writes rich, detailed roles for women and In the Next Room offers four such heroines. Set in a prosperous spa town outside of New York City like Saratoga Springs, the play takes place at the home of Dr. Givings, a specialist in gynecological and hysterical disorders, and his young wife, played by Cerveris and Benanti. Annie Smart’s set is split between the living room/parlor, and in the next room, the doctor’s examining room, in those days called the “operating theater.” Dr. Givings awaits a new patient, a Mrs. Daldry (Maria Dizzia), who has the classic symptoms of female hysteria: sensitivity to light and cold, headaches, weeping at odd moments, and nervousness and excitability.
However, the doctor’s wife, whimsical, bubbling and curious about life is also on the verge of a depression. The couple has just had their first child and Mrs. Givings is unable to produce enough milk to adequately feed their child. It is necessary for them to hire a “wet nurse” who will supply the necessary milk to keep the child healthy. Mr. and Mrs. Daldry suggest their housekeeper Elizabeth (Quincy Tyler Bernstein) who has lost her child but has a plentiful supply of milk. Dr. Givings’ midwife Annie (Wendy Rich Stetson) is a curiosity to Mrs. Daldry: why would a healthy attractive woman stay single and do such a job? However, besides professional and financial considerations, Annie has another reason, which she may not have been able to admit to herself.
Add to the mix the fact that male hysterics were also treated by doctors with a device called the “Chattanooga Vibrator.” Dr. Givings’ next new patient is Leo Irving, an English artist in a depression since the break up of a long-term love affair (Chandler Williams). Not only does Mrs. Givings find Leo’s unconventional lifestyle fascinating, but when Leo decides to paint Elizabeth’s portrait as a modern Madonna holding the Givings’ child with the blessing of both Mrs. Daldry and the doctor’s wife the stage is set for revelations, confrontations and finally, illumination. It is left to the married Elizabeth to explain to the other women that what they are feeling under the doctor’s treatment is what women are supposed to feel when having successful sexual relations with their husbands.
Slowly it becomes obvious that Mrs. Givings is as sexually unfulfilled as her husband’s patients. The loving but preoccupied doctor treats his wife as a fragile doll who cannot take care of herself, much like the hero of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House from the same period. Ultimately, Dr. and Mrs. Givings will have to confront each other and their marriage to reach a real rapprochement and sexual fulfillment. Cerveris who has often played remote characters in the past is excellently cast as the well-meaning doctor who must minister to himself. Benanti’s charm makes Mrs. Givings a delightful character who takes a journey of self-fulfillment precipitated by her husband’s patients.
Dizzia beautifully embodies Mrs. Daldry’s mood swings as well as her nineteenth century prudery. As her spouse, Thomas Jay Ryan is amusing as the benighted husband who has no idea that his wife’s illness is mainly his fault. As the black housekeeper turned wet nurse, yet still grieving for the loss of her son, Bernstein has great dignity. Williams is tremendously dashing as the bohemian artist with a touch of the theatrical in his character. Costume designer David Zinn’s attractive gowns also make a not so veiled point about the endless layers of clothing which kept nineteenth century women suppressed as well as enveloped.
A sex comedy for adults, Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room or the vibrator play is not timid about showing the emotions and physical reactions to the medical treatment. However, as befits a nineteenth century story, it is all tastefully done. Les Waters’ production has made this one of the most provocative plays to reach Broadway in a long time. Like the characters, you too may have an epiphany by the final curtain.
In the Next Room or the vibrator play (through January 10, 2010)
Lincoln Center Theater at the Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212-239-6200 or http://www.lct.org
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