We live in an age of sexual liberation: where mutual attempts to disentangle emotional and physical expressions of love are treated as an act of empowerment – friends with benefits, no strings attached. But whether they can be separated is another question altogether, and this is a focal point of Auckland Theatre Company’s latest production, In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play. Set in the late nineteenth century, it presents a society typified by the emotional without the physical: spouses without benefits, and all the strings attached to an unsatisfying seven minutes in the dark.

More than that, it returns us to a time when female sexuality was barely recognised. We follow Dr Givings (Adam Gardiner), a man renowned for his success in treating hysteria in women. The therapy: a breakthrough piece of electrical equipment that induces ‘paroxysms’, a phenomenon that flushes the excess fluid from the womb and relieves women of symptoms such as irritability, depression, and a general tendency to cause trouble. [More]

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The play’s two titles are intriguingly conflicted: the first has an allusive poetic quality while the alternative gives a blunt reminder of what the show is all about.

Such ambivalence is well attuned to contemporary taste and American playwright Sarah Ruhl can see no good reason to choose one thing or the other when it is perfectly possible to have it both ways.

The play successfully combines a nuanced meditation on the unintended consequences of new technology with a no-holds-barred romp through the mayhem that arose when prim and proper 19th century ladies discovered a whole new world was opening up thanks to the invention of electrical massage devices. [More] 

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It’s always been true that opposites, like magnets, attract and repel just as violently, and the drama brought about by the juxtaposition of two different forces always makes for great drama; reason and emotion, science and art, private and public, male and female, birth and death.

Sarah Ruhl’s hysterical (in more ways than one) drawing room play intelligently brings to life the comedy, pathos and politics of conflicting forces. In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) is a fantastic night out at the Maidment Theatre.

New York, 1880. The dawn of a new era of electricity and gender politics. A sumptuous drawing room in a middle class house lies before us and in ‘the room next door’ lives the much-revered “Chattanooga Express”, one of the first electric female vibrators.

Dr Givens has a cranking business administering treatments to women who need hysterical relief in the form of pelvic “paroxysms”. In other words, daily, mechanically (sometimes manually)-induced orgasms to relieve their anxiety. The ‘room next door’ and its neighbouring drawing room are two sides of a coin where the opposite elements of life co-habit, depicted in their naked, skeletal, classical form.

Outside the snow will fall, but not until our characters are truly ready to embrace all the playful, sensual joy that fully engaging with nature invites.

Dr Givens has a gift for understanding science, it seems, but not the complex workings of emotion or the female mind. He’s the very model of a modern major left-brained doctor, brought expertly to life by Adam Gardiner.

Givens is the complete opposite of Damien Avery’s sensualist artist Leo Irving, a free spirit who operates on instinct and falls in love at the drop of an easel. Irving presents a rare case of hysteria in a man – “he is an artist, after all!” – forcing Mrs. Givings to feel attraction that she’s not felt for her husband in a long while.

Hysteria erupted from the audience with Gardiner’s beautifully timed eccentric and heart breaking line, “How did you learn about BISCOTTI?!” Sorry, too much of a spoiler to explain.

While the room next door is Dr Givens’ domain, the adjoining drawing room is occupied by his right-brained, more instinctive wife Mrs Givings, played with delicious vivacity by Anna Julienne. Julienne’s timing is fabulous, as is Toni Potter’s as Mrs. Daldry. Both female actors deserve applause for their performances.

All this seven-strong cast are connected to the electricity of the situation and there’s an air of everyone shaping the piece beautifully together. Hera Dunleavy’s mild-mannered Annie painfully reveals her own secret desire, Lavinia Uhila’s wet nurse Elizabeth brings wonderful empathy and sincerity to her role, and Paul Glover’s Mr Daldry transports us to another time and place where women are flesh for men only to enjoy. Great stuff.  

As usual, a stellar crew surrounds this ATC production. John Gibson’s masterful compositions and sound design link the play and underscore the crumbling façade of this past/present world. Light, of course, is central to the body electric here and Phillip Dexter’s lighting design is perfectly sympatico with Rachael Walker’s classically-inspired set.

Special mention must be made of Elizabeth Whiting’s sumptuous costume designs which take on a personality of their own. Corsets, bustles, scarves, hats and garments restrict, percolate, then release the individual and diverse sexual desires at the heart of this play. Each costume resonates finely with the heart of their character.

You can see why Colin McColl was attracted to this award-winning drawing/vibrator room comedy. It is dense, witty, sharp, insightful and pushes the boundaries of what’s considered socially acceptable both on a theatre stage and in life. In many ways this is an echo of the earlier McColl/Rabbit classics with a twist. It’s David-Mamet-meets-Henrik-Ibsen; there’s an air of naturalistic, hyped-up hysteria in the air and the times they are a changin’. This is A Doll’s House on speed, with a re-imagined Nora and Helmer finally able to connect in their own skin as man and woman.

This production has just the right balance of polite gentility hiding desires so strong that characters’ façade of manners border on social hysteria. Of course the initial veneer of this polite, happy, racist, sexist, perfectly dysfunctional and upbeat world soon cracks open. This is a world where “You’d rather have a negro Protestant than an Irish Catholic wet nurse.”

Then, as now, the most base human functions like sex and breastfeeding are dictated not by politics, but commerce. Getting others to satisfy our most basic human needs no apology, just a pay cheque; Mrs. Givings needs fresh breast milk and dictates, “I want a wet nurse whose baby has just died.” We see the painful results of her wish list in Lavinia Uhila’s honestly crafted performance. 

McColl’s tight production brings energy to the play not often seen in a ‘drawing room comedy’. Anna Jullienne and Toni Potter finish the first half with a climax rarely observed in middle class theatre that’s worth remembering. It’s very funny. The assured direction allows these very strong actors to reveal their deepest feelings; fear, desire, ecstasy and pain. McColl has been lighting up our lives for decades now on the stage, and this production proves he is still plugged into the theatrical g-spot of a good night out.

The French believe that an orgasm is ‘le petit mort – the little death’, a kind of a rebirth in life. In beautiful symmetry Ruhl’s play provides transformation of sorts for every character; finally stripped bare of all trappings, our heroes encounter crisis in order to eventually see each other in their true human form. It’s very entertaining to watch this unfold.

Finally, with the courage to appreciate his wife’s unique and simple female beauty in his own language, Henry is able to connect with his opposite and Gardiner and Julienne beautifully, simply capture the Adam and Eve quality of this union.

The play’s final line is an invitation to live in the moment, relish each other, strip away preconceptions and find natural joy. “Let’s lie down and make snow angels,” Catherine says. At last, they’ve found each other. Nature calls. And the opening night audience leave, palpably wishing for snow when they get home.   

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