What a pleasure it is to encounter a near-perfect production of a play by one of the most exciting young playwrights in the world: Sarah Ruhl. Still in her mid-30s, she was nominated for both a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize for her witty, raunchy and admirably serious play about 19th century sexuality In the Next Room or the vibrator play. A hit on Broadway less than two years ago, it’s now lighting up the Tarragon Theatre.
This is a surprisingly funny, insightful play about the historically accurate attempts to cure “female hysteria” through the use of, well, read that title again. My rusty, high school Latin informs me that the word “hysteria” had its origins in the word for “womb.” Ah, those universally accepted sexist beliefs of the 1880s! The Victorian set is both beautiful and clever, as two often-related scenes take place in a den on stage right, as well as “in the next room,” where the “healing” takes place.
The acting, especially by Melody A. Johnson, Trish Lindström and David Storch, who often perform with Soulpepper, cries out for several Dora Awards. The play’s obsession with sex is never prurient and is often as moving as it is comical, even as the audience realizes that this miraculous new machine, designed to electrically produce “paroxysm” in these frustrated women, is actually designed to create orgasms. There is a complete lack of vulgarity in this finely penned piece of theatre, as we are continually bombarded with reminders about the general backwardness of the era.
What makes Ms. Ruhl such a fine playwright is her determination to never ignore the 19th century world of racism and religious prejudice present in the search for mental health. We see the wife of the doctor mortified by her lacking breast milk to feed her newborn (“Wet nurses are nine parts devil, one part cow!”) and put off by the fact that the woman who is recommended to nurse her baby is an African-American, whose own infant recently died.
Richard Rose has not merely directed this play with genius, he has choreographed it as well. And the playwright’s symbolism does not clash like an orchestra’s cymbals, as many modern plays do.
Not to gush, but this was one of the best evenings of theatre I’ve had in years.
In the Next Room or the vibrator play, Tarragon Theatre. Runs until Oct. 23.