Spotlight Theatre introduces Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room… (or The Vibrator Play), directed by Thomas-Robert Irvin as part of the Innovations subscription series, and running Jan. 11 - 13 (8 p.m. on Fri. and Sat., 2 p.m. on Sun.). Presented as a staged reading in the style of a radio play, In the Next Room… is a comedy about marriage, intimacy, and electricity.
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). 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. In the Next Room… is produced by special arrangements with Samuel French, Inc., and is intended for mature audiences.
