In the Other Room, or the vibrator play Electrifies ACT

In her 2009 work, playwright Sarah Ruhl had the recipe for the perfect title: vague, yet it tells you exactly what it’s about. As directed by ACT mainstay Kurt Beattie, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (running through August 28) is an “uproarious” comedy of manners about a woman’s place, the industrialization of the female body, and the twinning of technology and pleasure.

For the most part, In the Next Room is a light-hearted Victorian romp. In “a prosperous spa town outside of New York City, perhaps Sarasota Springs, [at] the dawn of the age of electricity; and after the Civil War; circa 1880s,” kindly Doctor Givings takes care of women (and the occasional man) who have been diagnosed with hysteria, using his new medical instrument, the Chattanooga vibrator—a real device, mind you—to reduce their anxiety and tension via violent, shuddering paroxysms. But what of the good doctor’s wife? Doesn’t Mrs. Givings deserve to get a good paroxysm every now and again too? The answer, of course, is yes, everyone should receive mind-blowing full-body orgasms on the regular. Except the Victorians! Socially scandalous wackiness ensues.

It’s not a perfect play, and compared to the recent staging of Ruhl’s first work at StageRIGHT, both the play and ACT’s staging are a little too on-the-nose. Brendan Kiley is right when he says that “Ruhl will never be known as America’s subtlest playwright.” Take the doctor’s surname “Givings” as a prime example. Oh COME on. Adding to that, Matthew Smucker’s otherwise awesome and dexterous set—conveying the simultaneous activity within two rooms without doors or walls—is marred by the inclusion of a birdcage hanging over everything. Yes, yes, a woman at this time was a bird in a cage, Ive read Ethan Frome and The Awakening in high school too, thank you very much. There is a wet nurse subplot that doesn’t add much besides a further comment on the treatment of women’s bodies as machines, and the play closes on a scene that’s a lesson in show-don’t-tell. All that being said, half the fun of seeing this work at a mainstream theatre company like ACT is the audience reaction: for whatever reason, faked orgasms onstage set them all atwitter.