In the Next Room…The Vibrator Play
By Sarah Ruhl
Produced by special arrangements with Samuel French, Inc.
Directed by Thomas-Robert Irvin
Jan. 11, 12, 13 (Matinee), 2013
Evenings at 8 PM, Matinee at 2 PM
$15 for evening performances, $12 for matinee
Part of the Innovations subscription series
THE STORY: In the Next Room or the vibrator play is a comedy about marriage, intimacy, and electricity. 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.