In 1880s America electricity is a novelty. It lights Dr and Mrs Givings’ living room, and in the adjacent surgery Dr Givings treats a common complaint, “hysteria,” with electrically-induced “paroxysms.”

The treatment’s vibrations are such that they cannot be contained within the surgery, and impulses and passions spark and flare among Mrs Givings, patients and staff. To add to the confusion, ideas from less inhibited cultures are introduced.

Dr Givings, however, remains the impartial man of science. “What men do not observe because their intellect prevents them from seeing would fill many books,” he remarks, but this insight does not extend to observing his wife’s growing distress. 

Lara Macgregor directs Sarah Ruhl’s strange, funny, charming play about ignorance and repression, drawing sensitive and intelligent performances from all of the cast. I was particularly impressed by Chelsea McEwan Millar’s warmth and bounce in the role of the disappointed but resourceful Catherine Givings, and Claire Dougan’s finely-tuned comedy as rigidly neurotic patient Sabrina Daldry.  Other roles are played by Jason Whyte (Dr Givings), Conrad Newport (Mr Daldry), Anna Henare (Elizabeth), Nic Kyle (Leo Irving) and Hilary Halba (Annie). 

Visually, too, the production delights. Maryanne Wright-Smyth’s detailed costumes might have materialised from Whistler paintings, and Peter King’s sumptuous set is among his best ever.

The play’s unusual and unsettling subject matter, and its nuances, absurdities and humour brought responses ranging from hoots of laughter and anxious titters to shocked astonishment from Friday night’s largely female audience.

This is not to suggest that In the Next Room is crass or a gynaecological “women’s play”: it is neither, and its tone is compassionate. It provides us with opportunities to consider the oddity of bygone practices and ethical assumptions, and perhaps to reflect on the peculiarities of our own age.  

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Oh – oh – OH! The ecstatic sighs on stage are met with ecstatic gasps from a full house and it is dazzlingly clear that In the Next Room will be a sensational success for the Fortune. Don’t waste a moment in booking: this is certain to be a sell-out.

A play subtitled the vibrator play might, in the wrong hands, have been sleazy or farcical, but with effortless elegance director Lara Macgregor gets the tone just right – it is sexy and funny. It’s illuminating too; appropriate for a play about the miraculous potential of electricity. Lastly, it has tremendous credentials: the gala performance that starts the season is a fundraiser for the Otago Medical Research Foundation. 

One of the most imaginative and adventurous of America’s playwrights, Sarah Ruhl, was intrigued to learn that in the late nineteenth century the ‘hysteria’ suffered by so many bored and frustrated ladies was treated by ‘paroxysms’. These had to be induced manually before electricity made possible the invention of an amazing medical instrument: the vibrator. 

The Age of Discovery indeed, and what a contradictory age it was. Easy enough to heap scorn on its treatment of women, children, working classes, foreigners, etc, etc; yet on the other hand, burningly aware as it was of the potential of energy from steam to coal to electricity, would it ever have been guilty of the supreme folly of selling off its state energy companies? Certainly not. But I digress. 

In this puritanical and hypocritical age the moral and medical were often confused. 

Doctors who must have known better promoted hideous devices designed to prevent masturbation in little children, and girls were kept in frightening ignorance of the facts of life. Though every tenth house in London was a brothel, ladies were not supposed to have sexual feelings. So naturally, a gentleman made no effort to make sex satisfying or enjoyable for his wife. 

Ruhl has made marvellous use of this rich material. The play itself crackles with high energy, the situation is amusing and the script is witty.  Ruhl has resisted the urge to make villains of her male characters. All are presented with a measure of sympathetic understanding, sensitively interpreted by Macgregor’s fine cast. The politesse of the age is perfectly captured, the little niceties of period interaction sparked with subtle modern consciousness, and the all-important balance of energy is maintained.

Jason Whyte commands the stage as Dr Givings, the dry man of science, kindly and fond of his wife, but unable to understand her.  He is as repressed as his patients, and as much in need of stimulation, electrical or not.  Whyte wisely plays the part without a hint of irony, totally serious in his efforts to provide the best possible treatment for his anxious patients, and his delightfully professional manner ensures there is no vulgarity about the scenes in his operating theatre. (‘Let’s just call it the next room,’ says the doctor soothingly.)  His gradual metamorphosis is credible and tender.

His “blooming young wife with no hint of neurosis”, Catherine, is brought to vivid life by talented newcomer Chelsea McEwan Millar. Catherine has been seen as akin to Ibsen’s Nora in A Doll’s House but to my mind she has more in common with Hedda Gabler. She is impulsive and curious, frustrated as wife (her husband is absorbed in his profession) and as mother (she must employ a wet-nurse).  Her high energy – rushing into the rain, seeking romance with an artist, breaking into the forbidden ‘room next door’ – is contrasted with her husband’s control. Millar endows her with an irresistible youthful charm, from her first entrance in elaborate, shimmering royal blue to the sweet final scene in dainty and equally elaborate underclothes.

Clare Dougan is neurotic hysteria patient Sabrina Daldry, whose husband has brought her in because she’s weeping and muttering about green curtains concealing ghosts. Her character is surely inspired by the disturbing American short story The Yellow Wallpaper, published in 1892, of a wife suffering nervous depression, whose physician husband forces her into a ‘rest cure’ that really does drive her insane. The joys of the vibrator seem infinitely preferable! 

Dougan undergoes the treatment with a delicate mixture of dignity and comedy.  She makes credible Sabrina’s blossoming and the engaging development of her relations with the other women. The charming scenes in which Catherine and Sabrina become confidantes are a highlight of the production, and there is a playful absurdity in their girl-on-girl action. (Think Oscar Wilde’s Gwendolen and Cecily in an episode of The L-Word.) 

It is interesting to see on stage Conrad Newport, who is usually in a directing role. He makes a fine job of Sabrina’s selfish husband, attracted to the energy he remembers in his wife and sees in Catherine, but sternly in control, just his twitching hands revealing the inner struggle. 

As the perfect nurse Annie, Hilary Halba hits the right note every time, hilarious when, utterly straight-faced, she vigorously works the treadle or ‘manually manipulates’ the patients, but infinitely touching when her secret is revealed: a lovely performance. 

Ruhl’s efforts to show the coloured working class, in the person of Elizabeth, the African-American wet nurse, as morally superior, might have appeared clumsy were it not for the warmth and natural poise Anna Henare brings to the role.  Her Madonna-like serenity surmounts all indignities and she is beautiful to watch on stage. 

The cast is rounded out by the artist who appears in the second act for treatment to get his creative juices flowing again, submits to some comic anal stimulation, and in no time is painting Elizabeth. Again this might seem over-written, and somewhat implausible in its consequences, but ‘cheek and chawl wins it all’ and a lively Nic Kyle carries us with him. 

The cast is supported by a simply brilliant production team.  The set by Peter King is ravishing, and the actors inhabit it with confidence: two meticulously recreated period rooms allow for a harmonious double act; one a charmingly circular parlour, the other the study/operating room.  The colours are rich and the detail immensely satisfying. Even the old books in the examination room have been painstakingly photo shopped from the town library’s collection of rare books. And the snow is a triumph!  

The costumes are dazzling.  Maryanne Wright-Smyth has seized on a career opportunity and spared no trouble to produce gown after exquisite gown. Eat your heart out, Tissot!  Even the men’s waistcoats are sumptuous, and the underwear is enchanting. This is crucial, as costume – from the corsets to the dead birds on Mrs Daldry’s hats – clearly represents the crippling restrictions on women of the time.

With characters constantly drawing attention to the wonders of electricity compared to the beauty of candles, lighting is naturally paramount. For this production, the Fortune is blessed with the services of Jennifer Lal, who has ensured the period effect is enhanced, and the stage glows or sparkles at all the right moments. 

Finally, as we have come to expect, the glossy programme is a great start for further fascinating research into the curious customs of the ‘civilised world’ in the nineteenth century.  And who isn’t intrigued by the sexual mores of other societies? 

Certainly the theme is breath-takingly daring, but Macgregor has ensured any offence is smoothed away by the charming naivety with which these characters approach the serious business of gaining sexual satisfaction, culminating in the delightful scene in which the ladies innocently try to describe the nature of a ‘paroxysm’.  

Essentially this is a happy play, full of laughter and hope.  Unmissable.

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