Sarah Ruhl’s “In the Next Room” describes a Victorian parlor-room society of such primness that husbands turn their backs when their wives undress. And any suggestion that women might find pleasure in sex is rebuked with dismissive giggles and disbelief.
How, then, does one explain the moans of pleasure and squeals of delight emanating from the treatment room of the character of Dr. Givings? Thomas Edison has just invented electricity. Women are suffering from unexplained bouts of hysteria. And the doctor has found a cure in the electric tingle of a device that, even in today’s sexually sophisticated world, causes adults to blush and schoolboys to snicker. The name for the doctor's magic wand is that loaded word found in the subtitle of Ruhl’s meditation on the erotic yearning under the fussy undergarments and polished surfaces of 1880s society.
“In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play” — which Synchronicity Theatre is staging at Horizon Theatre in Little Five Points — is the most straightforwardly realistic drama to date from the author of the poetically luminous “Eurydice” and “The Clean House.” It is also the least successful and most self-consciously structured work from this formidably gifted playwright — a fact that is only underscored by director Rachel May's solid, well-meaning but somewhat disappointing production.
It’s a clever design for a play, to be sure, conjuring a sex comedy about the uptight milieu of Henry James and Edith Wharton from a 21st century mindset. Dr. Givings’ wife, Catherine (Kate Donadio), has an infant child, but the joy of motherhood is lost on her. And yet, as her husband (Brian Kurlander) treats his patients in the next room, her soul is awakened to the possibilities of love. (That nearly every character alas becomes a slave to some sort of awkwardly futile romantic attachment is one the play’s shortcomings — along with its sentimental ending.)
Kurlander plays Givings with a stiffness to match Donadio’s screwball bubbliness, which comes across as heavily postured and artificial. You are always aware of Donadio's mask. Portraying the doctor’s good assistant, Annie, Daryl Lisa Fazio is monotoned and invisible, at first. But keep your eye on Annie. She may surprise you. As the wet nurse, Elizabeth, Xiomara Yanique brings considerable grace, dignity and truth to her character.
One of the more effective gags is the way the doctor’s patients are transformed by his wand, a comic device that keeps traffic at the Givings household brisk. Wearing veils and a shadow of solemnity, the mysterious and dour Mrs. Sabrina Daldry (the wonderful Tiffany Morgan) soon becomes addicted to the treatments. She can't get enough.
As the frustrated painter Leo Irving, Tony Larkin brings a much-needed blast of energy and spark to the second act. Faced with performing some of the most delicate and sensitive material in the play, Morgan and Larkin acquit themselves admirably. (Doyle Reynolds’ Mr. Daldry gets in a few good lines, but the actor isn’t all that engaging.)
While Jonida Beqo’s period costumes and Michael Halad’s set are handsomely detailed, there’s an emotional disconnect here that can’t be reconciled. Despite a noble effort to stimulate dialogue on sexuality and relationships, "In the Next Room" gets short-circuited by the mixed signals of its cast. The proverbial light bulb never goes off.
Theater review
"In The Next Room, or The Vibrator Play"
Grade: B-
8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. 3 p.m. Saturdays. 7 p.m. Sundays. Through Nov. 19. $20-$25. Synchronicity Theatre, Horizon Theatre, 1083 Austin Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-484-8636, synchrotheatre.com
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