In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play
nytheatre.com review by Martin Denton
November 25, 2009
Lincoln Center Theater's production of Sarah Ruhl's new work In the Next Room, or the vibrator play comes off as precisely the extended dirty joke that its title smirkily promises. Though the ostensible subject of the piece is the way that America's 19th century paternalistic culture institutionalized female repression, sexual and otherwise, the objective of the show seems to be to allow audiences to titter gleefully at the sight of a medical doctor going at one of his female patients with a crude vibrator in the hopes that getting her to achieve orgasm will cure her "hysteria." Indeed, Maria Dizzia, who plays the patient whose progress we follow during the play, rivals Meg Ryan in the amount of mileage she gets from her frantic though deliberate oohs and aahs and ohohohs.
Ruhl's play is set in "a prosperous spa town outside of New York City, perhaps Saratoga Springs" (an aside: come on, Ms. Ruhl: why not just let it be Saratoga Springs, if that's where you want it to be) about 20 years after the Civil War. Dr. Givings, a specialist in the woman's disorder known as "hysteria," has invented a treatment that seems promising. Fascinated by the still-new toy called electricity, he has fashioned a motor-powered device that, when inserted into a lady's "womb," can bring on "paroxysms" which seem to relieve her symptoms. We would call the thing a vibrator nowadays, though the ones we're familiar with aren't generally hooked up to as elaborate or imposing an apparatus as the one Givings plies on his patients.
The good doctor has a lovely bright young wife who has recently given birth to their daughter but unfortunately seems unable to supply sufficiently nutritious milk; the play's key subplot involves the couples' engagement of a wet nurse, Elizabeth, who is the black servant of Givings's current star patient, Mrs. Daldry. Mrs. Givings is jealous of Elizabeth and also jealous, in another way, of Mrs. Daldry, for she is wildly curious about what goes on in her husband's office, which, as the play's title explicates, is the room right next to the drawing room where Mrs. Givings spends her time. Eventually, with Mrs. Daldry's aid, Mrs. Givings sneaks into the office and discovers the vibrator and its remarkable secrets.
Dr. Givings also has a male patient, an artist called Leo Irving, who has the very rare male equivalent of hysteria. Givings has a version of his device that can be inserted into Leo's anal cavity, to stimulate the prostate. The apparently entirely heterosexual Leo—and I had real trouble with the believability factor here—agrees to the treatment without even a second of hesitation or protest. The audience, of course, was delighted, which brings me back to my original thought.
Ruhl and her director Les Waters seem content to simply skim the surface of the important ideas in their play, settling for the giggles of an American audience that still reels from the Puritanical streak that defines our culture rather than probing (pun intended) the notions of sexuality and systematized male chauvinism in an interesting manner. For me, the big questions of In the Next Room are (a) what is hysteria really, and why did women suffer from it during this period of history, and what was its underlying cause; and (b) why is Mrs. Givings unable to breast feed her own children (my guess here: malnutrition; thin waists were prized then as now). The case of Mr. Irving also raises more questions than are ever satisfactorily answered.
Waters has his cast go for the easy laughs, and led by Dizzia as the very hysterical Mrs. Daldry and Michael Cerveris as the oh-so-earnest Dr. Givings, they deliver what's asked of them. Laura Benanti dumbs herself down to be the simple-minded though inquisitive Mrs. Givings, while Thomas Jay Ryan overdoes the overbearing-asshole bit as Mrs. Daldry's obnoxiously domineering husband. Quincy Tyler Bernstine plays Elizabeth, the only character in the play who seems actually in touch with her true nature (sexual and otherwise). Wendy Rich Stetson plays Dr. Givings's vaguely butch nurse/assistant, and Chandler Williams rounds out the company in the strange and possibly underwritten role of Leo.
The design is up to the Lincoln Center standard, featuring lovely gowns and period duds by David Zinn and a unit set that does a nifty transformation at the finale by Annie Smart.
There's a bit of gratuitous, embarrassed nudity near the end; otherwise, the play is all bark and no bite, just like those naughty jokes kids tell when they're in junior high.
