Debuting its new home at North Hollywood’s Secret Rose Theatre, L.A.’s award-winning The Production Company opens its seventh season with a sparkling Los Angeles Intimate Stage Premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s delightful, provocative, ultimately uplifting In The Next Room (or the vibrator play), a 2010 Best Play Tony nominee and one that more than matches Ruhl’s previous The Clean House, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and Eurydice in quirky originality and charm.

 In The Next Room (or the vibrator play) takes us back to late-1800s New York, where Sabrina Daldry (Yael Berkovich) has recently been exhibiting symptoms which trouble her considerably older husband (Michael Zemenik). Light has been bothering Sabrina lately, and she cries at the drop of her heavily veiled hat.

A consultation with neighborhood physician Dr. Givings (Michael Oosterom) reveals the cause of her ailments: “hysteria.” (A contemporary doctor would probably diagnose her condition as depression resulting from sexual frustration.)

 Fortunately for the Daldrys, Dr. Givings has just the treatment to cure Sabrina of her ills, a device made possible by the recent arrival of electric current into New York’s wealthier homes. A minute-or-two application of this vibrating apparatus to Sabrina’s private parts, plus a bit of digital stimulation administered by the doctor’s faithful nurse Annie (Elizabeth Southard), provides an almost instantaneous improvement in Sabrina’s mental state (along with a multitude of moans and gasps of pleasure), and she eagerly agrees to return for daily treatments.

 Meanwhile in the next room, Dr. Givings’ wife Catherine (Joanna Strapp) is suffering from a post-partum depression exacerbated by her inability to provide enough milk for her newborn daughter. Mr. Daldry proposes that his African-American housekeeper Elizabeth (Candace Nicholas-Lippman), who has recently lost an infant child, serve as the Givings child’s wet nurse, and though Catherine has misgivings about inviting a woman of color into her household, her husband reminds her that a Negro Protestant would certainly be more acceptable than an Irish Catholic.

Having another woman take over her maternal role only exacerbates Catherine’s depression, and when her curiosity at the sounds emanating from the next room gets the better of her, Catherine finds that a bit of under-the-undies vibration (administered first by an eager Sabrina and then by Catherine herself) is doing things to her that the good doctor never could. Now, if she could only feel these same sensations in the bedroom…

Not to be left off Dr. Givings’ list of patients is English painter Leo Irving (Ben Gillman), a handsome young playboy with “hysteria” issues of his own, albeit in his case solved by a special-for-males anal stimulator (and one not apparently impeded by long underwear worn over tighty-whities).

21st Century audiences may chuckle at the innocence (or stupidity?) of a bygone era when even medical authorities saw no connection between sex and the “paroxysm” caused by this “electro-massage machine,” but titles like The Elusive Orgasm: A Woman’s Guide To Why She Can’t And How She Can Orgasm (on sale for $12.10 at Amazon.com) make it clear that there are Sabrinas and Catherines among us even today, in addition to contemporary Leos for whom prostate massage may be every bit as efficacious as Viagra.

In The Production Company’s maiden effort at the Secret Rose, director August Viverito has elicited one standout performance after another.

 Returning to The ProdCo for the first time since her devastating—and Scenie-winning—star turn in How I Learned To Drive, the always sensational Strapp gives an effervescent yet grounded performance as Catherine, one which proves her every bit as adept at comedy as she has been in dramatic roles like Learn To Drive’s L’il Bit.

A nicely understated Oosterom complements Strapp as Catherine’s loving but undemonstrative husband, a stuffed-shirt with a potential for emotional growth and romantic, sexual passion—if only he can be brought out of his all-business-no-pleasure shell.

Berkovich proves herself a comedienne extraordinaire in her scene-stealing performance as Mrs. Daldry, particularly when electro-massage sends her into operatic paroxysms that would do Meg Ryan’s Sally (and any Met soprano) proud.

 A superb Nicholas-Lippman adds gravitas to the In The Next Room mix as wet-nurse Elizabeth, and never more so than when recalling the brief life and tragic death of her beloved Henry Douglas.

Zemenick makes for a deliciously pompous (and clueless) Mr. Daldry, while Southard combines starched efficiency and womanly warmth as nurse Annie.

Last but not least is Gillman’s gleefully, unrestrainedly charismatic work as Leo, whose arrival in Act Two gives play and production a riotous adrenalin shot (and the women in the Givings household reason to head straight to the next room for the next best thing to Leo in the flesh).

Splendid as all these performances are, there does remain somewhat more of a disconnect between In The Next Room’s comic first three quarters and its considerably more dramatic final scenes that Ruhl perhaps intended. As an example, while I adored both Berkovich’s Mrs. Daldry and Nicholas-Lippman’s Elizabeth, I can’t help wondering if the former’s slap-shticky I Love Lucy sobs and the latter’s heart-wrenching Actors’ Studio tears belong in the same production.

 The Secret Rose’s wide stage allows scenic designer Viverito to give us both living room and adjoining doctor’s office in all their late-19th Century elegance. Kelly Graham has created some snazzy period costumes, albeit a good deal more streamlined than the exquisitely detailed exteriors, bustles, and corsets of the Tony-winning Broadway originals. Matt Richter’s fine lighting design replicates both electric and natural light with flair. Viverito’s sound design sets just the right jaunty mood.

In The Next Room (or the vibrator play) is assistant directed and produced by T L Kolman. Caitlin Rucker is assistant lighting designer. Scott Fleming is stage manager.

This past spring having brought L.A. audiences Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice at A Noise Within and her Dead Man’s Cell Phone at International City Theatre, Angelinos can now rejoice that summer and The Production Company are giving us our first local taste of Ruhl’s most recent Broadway hit—and a yummy one it is.

The Production Company at the Secret Rose Theatre, 11246 Magnolia Boulevard, North Hollywood.
www.theprodco.com

–Steven Stanley
August 24, 2013

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Sarah Ruhl, The Production Company