Award-winning comedy of manners next up on stage
‘In the Next Room (or) The Vibrator Play’ runs till May 21
It’s somehow became part of the political vernacular of our times.
It’s the part the president admitted grabbing — long before most people suspected he’d be the 45th — when women were within grabbing distance. And, perhaps significantly, he doesn’t have one and his opponent did.
So, the timing of Santa Fe Playhouse’s presentation of Sarah Ruhl’s play “In the Next Room (or) The Vibrator Play,” is exquisite. The play garnered three Tony awards in 2010. The playwright received the $200,000 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright award last year. Today through May 21, Monique Lacoste directs the play, which is about the time in the 1880s when it all comes together: medical exploration; harnessed electricity; and the covert sexual tension of American middleclass women. Pleasantly together.
“It’s a comedy of manners, of a time and a place when people were exploring, but they were completely out of their depth,” said Lacoste, 37,
who holds a Ph.D. in communications.
A diagnosis of hysteria, suffered mainlyby women, was considered a medical condition that required treatment. In the race for a “cure,” it’s thought that another page in the book of female sexuality was finally written. And then probably redacted, but who can know for sure?
Women, “good” women, were denied the “privilege of pleasure” and the idea of a female orgasm was strange, Lacoste said. Relief for medical conditions seemed a more reasonable conclusion — at least you could talk about it.
With the rise of the middle class, doctors stopped making so many house calls and opened offices, usually in their own homes, Lacoste explained. At the heart of Ruhl’s play is the marriage of the doctor who is providing the revolutionary treatments and his wife, who’s visiting with her husband’s patients before and after treatment. They’re also new parents and a wet nurse offers even more insight.
Isabel Madley is Mrs. Givings, who “kept her eyes closed” to her needs in the marriage, said Lacoste.
“It’s one of the things I really like about it, she becomes aware that she can claim and create the kind of marriage she wants,” said Lacoste.
Marty Madden is Dr. Givings, whose practice brings some relief to his relationship with his wife.
Some nudity and a sex scene are part of the play, along with clothes, due to the time period, lots and lots of clothes.
Planners for the 99-seat Playhouse’s season included “In the Next Room (or) The Vibrator Play” last fall, before the presidential election, said Jennie Lewis, theater manager. Politics, sexual and otherwise, were planned as part of the season, but few there expected the outcome that then shed new light on the choices, she said.
“We decided to make a statement; we had to. We’re responsible artists,” she said.
The result of the election made the selection for the season even more thought-provoking, she said.
The Playhouse has already presented “1984,” with “The Normal Heart,” a drama about the AIDS epidemic scheduled to run next.
“Cabaret” is scheduled for late July through August before the annual Fiesta Melodrama in August and September.