num_pages: 88
description: In the Next Room or the vibrator play is a comedy about marriage intimacy and electricity. Set in the 1880s at the dawn of the age of electricity and based on the bizarre historical fact that doctors used vibrators to treat 'hysterical' women (and some men) the play centers on a doctor and his wife and how his new therapy affects their entire household. In a seemingly perfect well-to-do Victorian home proper gentleman and scientist Dr. Givings has innocently invented an extraordinary new device for treating hysteria in women (and occasionally men): the vibrator. Adjacent to the doctor's laboratory his young and energetic wife tries to tend to their newborn daughter-and wonders exactly what is going on in the next room. When a new hysterical patient and her husband bring a wet nurse and their own complicated relationship into the doctor's home Dr. and Mrs. Givings must examine the nature of their own marriage and what it truly means to love someone.This laugh out loud provocative and touching play premiered at Berkely Rep and subsequently marked Sarah Ruhl's Broadway debut opening at the Lyceum Theatre on November 19th 2009.
language: English
title: In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play
publisher: Samuel French, Inc.