It’s the 1880’s and the practical use of electricity has emerged as an epiphany, giving way to interior lighting and other conveniences. Dr. Givings treats patients (mostly women) for hysteria. Dr. Givings’ wife, Katherine, has a kind of sweet, breathless quality about her. If the doctor is cerebral and detached, Katherine is impulsive and effusive. What’s being diagnosed as “hysteria”, with its listlessness, malaise and lack of motivation, might also be construed as sexual frustration. The device Givings uses to treat their condition seems like a precursor to the vibrator. He applies it to their genitals, under a sheet, to preserve their modesty. Afterwards they are refreshed, vibrant, consumed by creative impulses.
In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) is Sarah Ruhl’s sex farce, eventually revealed as a melancholy reflection on the broken connection between men and women. At the outset, the various characters (two patients, two husbands, two wives, a painter, a nurse, a maid) seem fairly well-adjusted. As Katherine Givings surmises the procedure being performed on her husband’s patients, her ache for a more fulfilling marriage is elicited. Katherine’s joie de vivre finds no encouragement from her husband, who, while caring, is blind to his wife’s sybaritic spirit. As we learn more about the others: the details of their identities, their disappointments, their misery, we see (as Katherine does) that none of them are experiencing the abstract ideal of romance. In the hands of a lesser playwright, this revelation might have been reduced to cliché, but Ruhl imbues the narrative with poignancy and a poetry of longing.
As for the central metaphor, the left-brained husbands fail to grasp their clumsy attempts at using sex as the language of intimacy. (Only Leo, the artist, seems to understand the potential life presents for the rich and ecstatic.) The gizmo Dr. Givings uses to stimulate his patients, unfortunately, lacks the human touch. While often effective, it forfeits the grace of mammalian contact for mechanical response. Comparing electric light (with its alternating or direct current) to the elusive, flickering flame of a candle, Ruhl illustrates the folly of formulaic solutions to human quandary. Perhaps if the spouses were more empathetic? But that being said, In the Next Room, with parallel failures and thwarted intentions, carefully avoids assigning blame.
Director Marianne Galloway has assembled a valiant and fragile gathering of actors (Jennifer Kuenzer –David Meglino -Robert San Juan -Mindy Neuendorff -Sky Williams – Evan Michael Woods – Katlin Moon-Jones) for this profoundly touching and demanding piece. It’s difficult to know the appropriate response to a satire that morphs into an elaborate fable on the nature of our lives, the power of sympathy, and the destiny of coupling. We’re encouraged to chuckle at patriarchal deference to the male ego, and patronizing idolatry that leads men to treat women as girls. The enigma of goddesses replaces the rapture of imbuing pleasure. The cast, crew, et al, of In the Next Room have taken on this challenge with savvy, radiance and grace.
Imprint Theatreworks presents: In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) playing January 18th-26th, 2019. Bath House Cultural Center, 521 East Lawther Drive, Dallas, Texas 75218. 214-670-8749. imprinttheatreworks.org.