Review: (Ottawa) In The Next Room or The Vibrator Play

l-r Michelle LeBlanc, Sarah Finn and David Whiteley, photo by Andrew Alexander

The Next Room (The Vibrator Play) Humms Along

by Jim Murchison

There are lots of opportunities for cheap jokes in a review about a play called The Vibrator Play. I will avoid overdoing it, but I am only human. 

First let’s get right to the point. Bronwyn Steinberg has done a wonderful job of directing and the cast make sure that the story confidently humms along. There will very probably be a good buzz about this very well performed production.

Sarah Ruhl has written a very funny play set near New York City in the 1880’s. Electricity is an infant and the full benefits of it have yet to be realized. The medical community and, in this play, a particular doctor by the appropriate name of Dr Givings are treating female hysteria with a device used to stimulate to the point of achieving hysterical paroxysm. While 21st century audiences will recognize the euphemism for orgasm, this is not a word that is ever uttered in the play.