Ruhl - In the Next Room (or the vibrator play): Or the Vibrator Play

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Table of Contents

BOOKS BY SARAH RUHL AVAILABLE FROM TCG

The Clean House and Other Plays

INCLUDES:

The Clean House

Eurydice

Late: a cowboy song

Melancholy Play

Dead Mans Cell Phone

In the Next Room or the vibrator play

Passion Play

To my husband. For the garden on Hope Street.

PRODUCTION HISTORY

In the Next Room or the vibrator play was commissioned by and received its world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre (Tony Taccone, Artistic Director; Susan Medak, Managing Director) in Berkeley, CA, in February 2009. It was directed by Les Waters; scenic design was by Annie Smart, costume design was by David Zinn, lighting design was by Russell H. Champa, sound design was by Bray Poor; the composer was Jonathan Bell, the dramaturg was Madeleine Oldham and the production stage manager was Michael Suenkel. The cast was as follows:

DR. GIVINGS	Paul Niebanck
CATHERINE GIVINGS	Hannah Cabell
SABRINA DALDRY	Maria Dizzia
MR. DALDRY	John Leonard Thompson
ANNIE	Stacy Ross
ELIZABETH	Melle Powers
LEO IRVING	Joaqun Torres

In the Next Room or the vibrator play opened on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre in a production by Lincoln Center Theater (Andr Bishop, Artistic Director; Bernard Gersten, Executive Producer) on November 19, 2009. It was directed by Les Waters; scenic design was by Annie Smart, costume design was by David Zinn, lighting design was by Russell H. Champa, sound design was by Bray Poor; the composer was Jonathan Bell and the production stage manager was Roy Harris. The cast was as follows:

DR. GIVINGS	Michael Cerveris
CATHERINE GIVINGS	Laura Benanti
SABRINA DALDRY	Maria Dizzia
MR. DALDRY	Thomas Jay Ryan
ANNIE	Wendy Rich Stetson
ELIZABETH	Quincy Tyler Bernstine
LEO IRVING	Chandler Williams

ON THE STAGE

A piano.

Closed curtains.

Knickknacks.

One chaise.

A birdcage.

A pram/bassinet.

A rocking chair.

Sumptuous rugs, sumptuous wallpaper.

Many electrical lamps, and one particularly beautiful one, with green glass.

Next to the living room, a private doctors room, otherwise known as an operating theater.

The relationship between the living room and the operating theater is all important in the design, as things happen simultaneously in the living room and operating theater.

In the operating theater, a medical table covered with a sheet. A basin for washing hands.

Several vibrators.

And an outlet, to plug in electrical apparatus.

One exit, in the operating theater, to an unseen room (the doctors private study) and one exit to the living room, which has an exit to an unseen nursery and to the outdoors.

One might consider, rather than recorded sound, using only the live piano if one of the actors is good at playing piano.

One might consider, rather than the usual lighting instruments, something ancient.

That is to sayin a play hovering at the dawn of electricityhow should the theater itself feel?

Terribly technological or terribly primitive or neither

At any rate, let the use of technology feel like a choice.

PERSONAGES

DR. GIVINGS, a man in his forties, a specialist in gynecological and hysterical disorders.

CATHERINE GIVINGS, his wife, a woman in her late twenties.

SABRINA DALDRY, his patient, a woman in her early thirties.

MR. DALDRY, Sabrina Daldrys husband, a man in his forties or fifties.

ANNIE, a woman in her late thirties, Dr. Givingss midwife assistant.

ELIZABETH, an African-American woman in her early thirties, a wet nurse by default.

LEO IRVING, Dr. Givings other patient, an Englishman in his twenties or thirties.

PLACE

A prosperous spa town outside of New York City, perhaps Saratoga Springs.

TIME

The dawn of the age of electricity; and after the Civil War; circa 1880s.

PLAYWRIGHTS NOTES

Be sure to rehearse with a close approximation of the costumes you will be using (with the proper buttons and corsets) as the timing of dressing and undressing is all important when synchronizing with the dialogue. During simultaneous action, actors should never appear to be still or waiting for the other room to finish.

I am indebted to the book The Technology of Orgasm by Rachel P. Maines (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) for inspiration. Thanks to Luke Walden for putting me on to it. Another debt is due to AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War by Tom McNichol (Jossey-Bass, 2006), for thoughts on electricity. Thanks to my husband for finding it for me. Asterisks in the manuscript indicate quotations from these historical sources. A final debt is due to A Social History of Wet Nursing in America: From Breast to Bottle by Janet Golden (Ohio State University Press, 2001) and Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages by Phyllis Rose (Vintage Books, 1984).

Things that seem impossibly strange in the following play are all truesuch as the Chattanooga vibratorand the vagaries of wet-nursing. Things that seem commonplace are all my own invention.

Act I

First Scene

Mrs. Givings turns on her electric lamp.

She shows it to her baby.

MRS. GIVINGS

Look baby, its light! No candle, no rusty tool to snuff it out, but light, pure light, straight from mans imagination into our living room. On, off, on, off, on

She turns it off and on.

Dr. Givings enters the living room.

He walks through the space toward the operating theater without saying hello to his wife.

She watches him. After he exits:

MRS. GIVINGS

Hello.

Dr. Givings reenters the living room from the operating theater.

DR. GIVINGS

Sorry. Hello, darling.

He exits again to his office.

In the operating theater, Annie changes the sheets on the examining table.

MRS. GIVINGS

(To Dr. Givings) Hello!

(To the baby) Well find a nice nurse for you, wont we? A nice wet nurse with lots of healthy milk. Your father put an advertisement in the paper and well get lots of replies today. My milk is not filling you up, is it? Are you less fat today, darling? Are your cheeks less fat?

She is near tears. She recovers.

MRS. GIVINGS

Ill find you a nurse who hasnt a child of her own. Not that I hope to find a nurse with a dead baby for that is tragic nothing is more tragic oh it hurts me here to think ityou in your pram not movingbut I suppose if I am to find a childless nurse with milk to spare, her baby must be dead, and recently dead, oh dear. I dont like to think of that.

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