Written by American playwright Sarah Ruhl in 2009, this sits curiously between farce and something more serious. (I was going to write something more valuable, but who’s to say laughter isn’t worth more than all the world’s profundity?)
Set in late nineteenth century America, in a doctor’s residence and surgery, the play tells a tale of treating “hysteria” with the newly harnessed electricity. Dr Givings employs what we would call a vibrator, and his treatment is rather popular.
Though this farcical element is approached with true comic commitment by the cast, there’s a danger of it all slipping into a one-joke piece. We see the vibrator and its associated technology used on “patients” possibly a few too many times. (Though I have friends who would never tire of such a joke.)
And the basic conceit of the humour, that no-one seems to realise the “patients” are being sexually aroused to orgasm, is a challenging one to accept. Though the medical discourse of the time was dominated by myopic patriarchal attitudes, were the women themselves so very ignorant of their own bodies? Perhaps. Or perhaps the hegemonic discourse simply prevented open discussion. But theatre enables the representation of many discussions that would not otherwise be open. (It could be argued that’s part of its charm.)
But I guess it’s how the piece gains the first of its feminist credentials: if the diagnosis is that the female experience is so entirely dominated by patriarchal perspectives, then revolution is the only appropriate prescription.
And the piece gains its feminist credentials in other ways, representing aspects of the female experience that (still) could do with more cultural airtime. As well as orgasm, we’re shown breast feeding and the terrible fears of childbirth. As Catherine Givings says of the last of these experiences No rational person would go through this twice. This production also powerfully presents the anguish of child-raising, beginning with a desperate Catherine looking on helplessly as her new-born child just … won’t … stop … crying. She muses that it’s odd that Jesus was a man, one who supposedly gave his body in the eucharist, because it’s women who are eaten.
And this religious allusion leads me to consider the other great theme of the piece: the relationship between spirit and body. Electricity has long been associated with spirit, but in finally being harnessed, one more of the universe’s grand mysteries is reduced to a mere human tool. In the face of advancing scientific knowledge, what will become of other great mysteries, like love? Is love any more than pleasure? And is pleasure any more than mechanical? Will the brave new world of technology make us smaller? No, We will be Gods asserts Catherine, but in her lonely desperation she’s compared to a fallen angel. Ruhl builds on this motif, with characters making snow angels. And what is an angel? Spirit without body. Traditionally and conventionally, this is somehow seen as closer to the divine. Yet in the next room, we’re being shown the joy the body can offer. That body and spirit are not mutually exclusive is the salvation these characters must find – and the final (snowy) image of the play is glorious.
Director Emma Whitehead elicits some terrific performances from her cast, and that’s no mean feat, considering the demands of a script constructed from such dissimilar genres. (Though the reading of the play I outline in the previous paragraph leaves me wondering if some genuine nudity might’ve been a good choice. I also wish the script had given some of the characters more lines to express their fears and enthusiasms, which would not only have made a wonderfully rich play even richer, but – counterintuitively – would have facilitated a quickening in pace that sometimes the production needs.)
Alyona Popova as Annie, Dr Givings’ assistant, gets too few lines, but with what she gets she displays fitting dignity and impressive poignancy. Ruva Shoko as Elizabeth, the wet nurse, has a slow build, but when she gets her big speech she is deeply moving.
Luke Visentin as Leo, the artist who is a male sufferer of “hysteria”, is delightfully exuberant.
Catherine is the heart and soul of the piece, and Sarah Greenwood grabs the opportunity and gives a performance that is utterly superb – funny, fraught and full of life-affirming energy.
Paul Gilchrist
In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play by Sarah Ruhl
At New Theatre until 17 May
Image by Bob Seary
Theatre Red 
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