In the Next Room or the vibrator play

By Sarah Ruhl

Directed by Eva Gil

 A comedy about marriage, intimacy and electricity.

Set in the 1880s at the dawn of the age of electricity and based on the bizarre historical fact that doctors used vibrators to treat “hysterical” women (and some men), the play centers on a doctor and his wife and how his new therapy affects their entire household.

In a seemingly perfect, well-to-do Victorian home, proper gentleman and scientist Dr. Givings has innocently invented an extraordinary new device for treating “hysteria” in women (and occasionally men): the vibrator. Adjacent to the doctor’s laboratory, his young and energetic wife tries to tend to their newborn daughter – and wonders exactly what is going on in the next room. When a new “hysterical” patient and her husband bring a wet nurse and their own complicated relationship into the doctor’s home, Dr. and Mrs. Givings must examine the nature of their own marriage, and what it truly means to love someone.

“Insightful, fresh and funny, the play is as rich in thought as it is in feeling… one of the most gifted and adventurous American playwrights to emerge in recent years… In the Next Room is a true novelty: a sex comedy designed not for sniggering teenage boys – or grown men who wish they were still sniggering teenage boys – but for adults with open hearts and minds.” – The New York Times

“If Henrik Ibsen and Oscar Wilde had decided to collaborate on a post-modern drawing-room comedy, the hotsy-totsy twosome surely would have turned out something very much like Sarah Ruhl’s genuinely hysterical new work.” – TheatreMania

About Sarah Ruhl

Sarah Ruhl’s plays include "In the Next Room, or the vibrator play," "The Clean House," "Passion Play," "Dead Man’s Cell Phone," "Melancholy Play," "For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday," "The Oldest Boy," "Stage Kiss," "Dear Elizabeth," "Eurydice," "How to Transcend a Happy Marriage," "Orlando," "Late: a cowboy song," and a translation of "Three Sisters." She has been a two-time Pulitzer prize finalist and a Tony award nominee. Her plays have been produced on and off Broadway, around the country, and internationally, where they have been translated into over fifteen languages.

Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her M.F.A. from Brown University, where she studied with Paula Vogel. She has received the Steinberg Award, the Samuel French Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, the Whiting Award, the Lily Award, a PEN Award for mid-career playwrights, and the MacArthur Award. You can read more about her work on www.SarahRuhlplaywright.com. Her new book "100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write" was a New York Times notable book of the year, and she most recently published "Letters from Max" with Max Ritvo. She teaches at the Yale School of Drama, and she lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Image: Karl Blossfeldt, 1928 courtesy of rawpixel.com