Review: In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)

Laura Benanti. Photo: Joan Marcus

(Dear Gentle Reader: For those of you among our readership who would consider yourselves rather conservative, I can almost guarantee this play isn’t going to be among your top choices for viewing, and in fact, just reading this review and its description of what takes place might be more than you bargained for, so I’m just giving a little word of warning before your read on. --Lauren Yarger )


Or, How Many Orgasms Can We Witness on Stage?
By Lauren Yarger
Playwright Sarah Ruhl’s first offering on Broadway by Lincoln Center Theater is a sexually charged, almost-farce about an 1880s doctor who treats women suffering from hysteria with a new electronic vibrating device.

Dr. Givings (Michael Cerveris), appropriately named, it would seem, uses his vibrator on uptight patient Mrs. Daldry (Maria Dizzia), brought to him by concerned Mr. Daldry (Thomas Jay Ryan) to relieve the “congestion of fluid” that has built up in her womb and which is causing her difficulties like sensitivity to light.

With the help of his nurse, Annie (Wendy Rich Stetson), Givings administers daily treatments to Daldry’s private area to cause “paroxysms,” or releases of the tension, all while making small talk and totally unaware that the treatment has a sexual nature to it. Mrs. Daldry responds to the treatment, especially when Annie administers it.

Meanwhile, Givings’ wife, Catherine (Laura Benanti), is the most frustrated of all, a human vibrator, if you will, full of life and constantly buzzing with chatter, while restrained by a new baby who refuses to nurse and unable to unlock the secrets of her husband’s treatments which take place behind closed doors in the room next to the parlor of their home.

The very confident, but clueless Givings extends his treatments to patient, Leo Irving (Chandler Williams), with a special vibrating device for males that is inserted internally. The treatment releases the artistic talent that had been pent up and he and Mrs. Givings secretly set up sessions for him to paint Elizabeth (Quincy Tyler Bernstein), the Givings’ wet nurse, while she feeds their baby.

More and more frustrated with her inability to nurse her child who is bonding with Elizabeth and with her marriage in general, Catherine discovers the secrets of the large old-fashioned camera-looking wooden box with its attachment in the next room. Soon, she and new friends Mrs. Daldry and Annie are sharing the secret with each other and helping each other obtain “paroxysms.”

Soon Catherine’s desires force a showdown with Givings and when their very marriage is at stake, she administers her own type of sexual therapy to him in the snow (oddly their sexual awakening comes in a frigid setting, but I had long ago stopped expecting anything in this play to make any real sense).

Overall, the play seemed like a challenge to sit and be a voyeur (the treatments and the “paroxysms” occur on stage in full view of the audience) more than a thoughtful or well constructed play about self discovery. I got the feeling Ruhl just wanted to see how many times she could put an orgasm on stage and get away with calling it a play. A subplot about Elizabeth’s lost child and a long soliloquy by her toward the end of the piece seem out of place and play more like a last-minute attempt to put some depth in an other-wise weak play.

Now before you check me off as some sort of prude, there are some elements of the production that deserve praise even though it didn’t excite me (sorry, pun intended…) personally:
• there are a few funny lines
• Benanti, directed by Les Waters, is superb as the rattling-on and repressed wife
• David Zinn’s late 19th-century costumes are lovely
• Annie Smart’s set, especially the change form Victorian residence to winter wonderland is amazing.

The good doesn’t outweigh a rather ridiculous and "too-much-information" plot on this production, however, and it left me far from satisfied.

In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) runs at the Lyceum Theatre, 149 West 45th St.,NYC through Jan. 10. Amusingly, discounted tickets that will benefit Masterwork Productions are available by clicking here.

Christians might also like to know:
• The show posts a Mature rating
• The patients undress to their undergarments, lie on the examination table and are covered with sheets (some times), and the vibrator is applied.
• In one scene the nurse manually stimulates Mrs. Daldry.
• Sexual dialogue
• Homosexual activity
• Full male nudity