IN THE NEXT ROOM (or the vibrator play)


Open Fist Theatre Company scores another hit with Sarah Ruhl,s In The Next Room (or the vibrator play), the sparklingly provocative, unexpectedly touching 2010 Best Play Tony nominee that gave the award-winning playwright her first Broadway credit.

In The Next Room takes us back to late-1800s New York, where Sabrina Daldry (Stephanie Crothers) has recently begun exhibiting symptoms which her husband (Christopher Carver) finds troubling.

Though a contemporary doctor would probably diagnose her condition as depression resulting from sexual frustration, a consultation with neighborhood physician Dr. Givings (Spencer Cantrell) reveals the cause of her ailments to be (drum roll here) “hysteria.”

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 offers almost instantaneous improvement in Sabrina’s mental state, and she eagerly agrees to return for daily treatments soon to include digital stimulation administered by the doctor’s faithful nurse Annie (Jennifer Zorbalas).

Meanwhile in the next room, Dr. Givings’ wife Catherine (Dionna Veremis) finds herself the victim of post-partum depression exacerbated by an inability to produce sufficient milk for her newborn daughter.

Mr. Daldry proposes that his African-American housekeeper Elizabeth (Monazia Smith), who has recently lost her own infant child, serve as the Givings child’s wet nurse, an offer the good doctor accepts despite Catherine’s misgivings about inviting a woman of color into her household.  (Better than an Irish Catholic, he opines.)

When Catherine’s curiosity at the moans and gasps of pleasure emanating from the next room gets the better of her, the doctor’s wife discovers that a bit of under-the-undies vibration (administered first by an eager Sabrina and then by Catherine herself) does things to her her husband 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 Englishman Leo Irving (Bryan Bertone), a debonair young painter with “hysteria” issues of his own, for whom a special-for-males anal stimulator delivers similar orgasmic relief.

All of this adds up to not only Ruhl’s most accessible play but one whose themes—sex, sexuality, intimacy, gender roles, motherhood, etc.—remain relevant in 2022, with director Lane Allison eliciting one effervescent performance after another from a terrific cast of Open Fist veterans and newcomers.

Veremis makes for the loveliest of Catherines, while revealing the frustrations of a woman saddled with a husband clueless to her emotional and sexual needs, and Cantrell plays that husband to deliciously stuffy, pretentious effect.

It’s a particular treat to see (and hear) the fabulous Crothers transformed from a corset-and-customs bound wife into a woman capable of producing almost as many varieties of sexual moans and gasps as there are letters in the alphabet, and Bertone steals every scene he’s in as the most bohemian of painters in a household hidebound by societal conventions.

Carver and Zorbala provide solid support as a fuddy-duddy hubby and his efficiency-personified nurse, and stunning newcomer Smith delivers the dramatic goods as a young mother who has suffered the most devastating of losses.

Scenic designer Jan Monroe gives us two elegant adjoining rooms decorated to detailed perfection by properties designers Ina Shumaker and Bruce Dickinson, who merit added snaps for a pair of very different vibrating devices.

The spruce trees that back the set (kudos to set painter Crothers) evoke New York winter temperatures to match the interior chill, and being able to see characters arrive and leave proves a nifty directorial/design touch.

Mylette Nora’s elegant period costumes are some of her most gorgeous, Sarah Schwartz’s lighting design is vibrant and top-rate, and sound designer Marc Antonio Pritchett’s effects range from assorted vibrator whirs to some believably live-or-Memorex piano playing to evocative scene-change underscoring.

In The Next Room (or the vibrator play) is produced by Martha Demson. Fiona Jessup is assistant lighting designer. Jennifer Palumbo is production stage manager. Lucy Pollak is publicist. (The role of Mr. Daldry will be played by Alexander Wells beginning April 8.)

Following last fall’s Daniel MacIvor double feature, In The Next Room (or the vibrator play) once again illustrates Open Fist Theatre Company’s gift for programing eclectic, illuminating seasons. Not only that, but you may never think of electric current in quite the same way again.

Open Fist Theatre Company @ Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village.
www.openfist.org

–Steven Stanley
March 18, 2022
Photos:  Frank Ishman

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