Good Vibrations

Review: In the Next Room or the vibrator play
Lyceum Theatre, New York
November 11, 2009

Women of the 1880s who showed symptoms of hysteria went to their doctor to induce a paroxysm. In the new age of electricity, no longer illuminated by candles, these women experienced a newfound sensation, or even two at once. A new scientific invention, ridding their womb of hysteria confined within, invoked in tandem pain and pleasure.

So it was that the vibrator came into existence. Sarah Ruhl's new play In the Next Room paints this scene to forward her views of women's progress. When plans changed during my day trip to New York, I scooped a ticket on the basis of the actors, Lincoln Center Theater, and indubitable curiosity. Ruhl's previous play Dead Man's Cell Phone dealt with metaphysical questions of life, love, and limbo. In the Next Room, I hoped, would ground her in the specifics of time and place.

But her main character, Mrs. Givings, jars with the costume drama around her. Laura Benanti's housewife, unable to feed her newborn properly, yearns to connect with her child and with her husband, the paroxysm-curing doctor. Though her character harbors proto-feminist desires, Benanti acts like she's just stumbled in from Mad About You. Ruhl encourages this modern portrayal with choice vernacular: Wednesday is "smack in the middle of the week"; Mrs. Givings loves to "walk walk walk" through the garden. She is a lifeforce but an anachronistic one.

As Dr. Givings, Michael Cerveris stays period. In his steady portrayal of a scientific mind, he does not wink at us like Benanti, even when he calmly times his patients' three minutes of paroxyical ecstasy. He unveils a boyish vulnerability as he gradually warms to his wife's need for intimacy. Chandler Williams makes an impression as a European artist given new sight with the Chattanooga Vibrator. (Yes, men received medical stimulation too. Don't ask where.)

Ruhl's strengths are comedy and sentiment. Benanti's charming monologue on her child's birth ("and then he tried to eat me") manages both. But Ruhl's play overall is a provocative outline of ideas. She doesn't know how characters should enter, so they all misplace their scarf or gloves, as in a farce. And she nudges characters to reveal truths more modern than their setting. Did women really open up to each other about the vibrations? Why would the midwife, once a God-fearing woman, connect the machine to sexual relations with her husband?

In the Next Room is rooted in whimsy and screwball comedy; don't think too hard about its social implications. Like its electric star, the play induces sensations of both pleasure and discomfort.