In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)
In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)
By Sarah Ruhl
Directed by Pat Kight
April 5, 6, 12, 13 at 7:30pm • April 7, 14 at 2:30pm
Where: Majestic Main Stage
Tickets: $12-$16 Reserved Seating
In the Next Room includes scenes – and sounds – of sexuality, and is not recommended for children.
It’s the 1880s, the dawn of the age of electricity, and in a seemingly perfect, prosperous Victorian home outside of New York City, gentleman-scientist Dr. Givings has invented an extraordinary new device for treating “hysteria” in women. Meanwhile, his young wife, struggling to tend their newborn daughter, begins to wonder about the strange and disturbing sounds emerging from her husband’s operating theater in the next room. With the arrival of a new “hysterical” patient, and a wet-nurse hired to give the baby what Mrs. Givings cannot, the couple begin to examine the nature of their own marriage, and what it means to love.
Premiered by the Berkeley Repertory Theater in 2009, In the Next Room went on to Broadway that fall, winning 2010 Tony Award nominations for Best Play, Best Featured Actress and Best Costume Design.
Playwright Sarah Ruhl is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career. Her other works include Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Passion Play, and The Clean House.
