See What All the Buzz Is About With This Comedic Exploration Of The Vibrator
By Shannon Cudd
Comedy has the ability to educate an audience without coming across as too preachy or self-righteous. It disarms the viewer, relaxing them, and helps the walls come down. They are then open to experiencing whatever the message may be.
Taika Waititi’s 2019 film Jojo Rabbit used this principle. It seemed wrong to laugh about Nazis and World War II, but he pulled it off spreading the message of tolerance. Playwright Sarah Ruhl succeeded at this storytelling trick before Waititi with her 2009 play “In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play).”
Ruhl’s wild ride takes audiences back in time to the Victorian era and the origins of the vibrator. The play takes the stance that the electrical contraption was first invented by doctors to treat women’s hysteria, an actual medical diagnosis of the time steeped in sexism, which assumed women were more prone to mental and behavioral conditions due to stress because they were the weaker gender.
Costa Mesa Playhouse has long wanted to produce this Tony Award-winning play, according to Michael Serna, the current Vice President of the Board of Directors and former Artistic Director. “In The Next Room” kicks off the theatre’s 59th season, which Serna partnered with Peter Kreder, the new Artistic Director, and the rest of the board to curate. They collectively decided to focus “on a group of contemporary-leaning plays as we wanted to highlight the amazing relevant and powerful work by some of the best playwrights working today,” Serna explained.
This play is now 15 years old, but the themes are still relevant today, maybe even more so. “It was heavily produced when it first was published, but less so now. It felt like it was time for a revival,” Serna mused.
Director Kathy Paladino was ready for the challenge which includes many sensitive adult situations. She has handled this by having open and candid conversations with her cast. Every actor knew the subject matter at auditions, which consisted of monologues and cold readings from the script. There were no callbacks.
The theatre has a disclaimer for patrons coming to see the show as well. Their content advisory states: “This show contains sexual situations and adult themes.” You have been warned. This is not a family-friendly show.
The action of the play centers around Dr. Givings and his wife Catherine who have recently become parents. Now that electricity is available in the home, Dr. Givings treats women for hysteria at his own practice in the other room of his residence bringing them to paroxysms with the help of a vibrator. Catherine is barred from this world even though she is struggling with motherhood and lack of intimacy herself.
Paladino believes Ruhl’s use of two different spaces for men and women is a brilliant move. Dr. Givings spends most of his days in his clinical procedure room while Catherine is relegated to the living quarters. This shows “the strict hierarchy of gender roles that were around in the 1890s. And that still exists to some extent today.”
Serna agrees with that keen observation. “Well...we haven't really lost our ignorance about women and their bodies, have we? The canceling of Roe only heightened the need for these kinds of stories,” he mused.
Catherine is not given the ability to be in control of her own body. This lack of autonomy makes Catherine increasingly lonely and unsure of herself. She is frustrated with her sex life with her husband and feels like an inadequate mother to Letitia because she cannot nurse.
The women in the play struggle with the boxes society tries to force them into. Paladino believes Ruhl is making the case that it is dangerous to limit womanhood. The play is a cautionary tale about what can happen when “womanhood is inextricably bound to maternity and woman's body to fulfill maternal functions.” Catherine can’t nurse, Elizabeth lost a child, and Sabrina struggles with infertility.
“I think Ms. Ruhl is shining a light on the expected roles women have traditionally been expected to play: wife, mother, and sexual being,” Serna added.
Paladino thinks you should come and see this production because of its rich themes, great acting, and wonderful script. “It’s funny and charming in its bawdiness. It's one of these pieces that when you talk about it, you think, oh my God, that's really, that's really adult and edgy and oh my God. But it's done in such a warm and loving way. [Sarah Ruhl] can take these really lofty, deep, edgy themes and make them just so approachable,” she gushed.
“This is a funny play with a strong underlying message,” Serna added. “I think the titillating title purposefully tries to pull you into something seemingly base but under beautiful playwriting, I believe audiences will find the deeper meanings.”
Serna hopes audiences will “appreciate the struggle women have gone through in the past (and still struggle with today) for basic freedoms of self, medical choices, and identity.”
Paladino promises “a look back at a time that seems so different than ours, but really isn't. We're still dealing with these things.” She also hopes the audience comes to understand “that the idea of sexuality shouldn't be relegated to the other room. It should be something that we all can embrace and make a part of our intimate lives.”
Audiences can also expect a happy ending and lots of pleasure along the way– if you get our meaning.
Shannon Cudd is a writer, actor, and theatre lover in Orange County, California.
“In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)”
Costa Mesa Playhouse 661 Hamilton Street, Costa Mesa, CASeptember 13 - October 6, 2024
(949) 650-5269, www.costamesaplayhouse.org
Comments