A comedy about marriage, intimacy and electricity, Black Swan presents Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play in the Heath Ledger Theatre from 24 October 2018.
In a seemingly perfect Victorian home, proper gentleman and scientist Dr Givings has innocently invented an extraordinary new device for treating ‘hysteria’ in women (and occasionally men): the vibrator. Adjacent to the doctor’s laboratory his young and energetic wife tries to tend to their newborn daughter – and wonders exactly what is going on in the next room.
When a new ‘hysterical’ patient and her husband bring a wet nurse and their own complicated relationship into the doctor’s home Dr and Mrs Givings must examine the nature of their own marriage and what it truly means to love someone.
This laugh out loud, provocative and touching play premiered at Berkeley Rep and subsequently marked Sarah Ruhl’s Broadway debut opening at the Lyceum Theatre in November 2009. In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play was nominated for the 2010 Tony for Best Play and was selected as a Finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize.
Jeffrey Jay Fowler (The Eisteddfod, Girl Shut Your Mouth, Blithe Spirit, Shadowboxing) directs a stellar cast including Rebecca Davis, Stuart Halusz, Kingsley Judd, Tariro Mavondo, Jo Morris, Tom Stokes and Alison van Reeken.
Sarah Ruhl is an American award-winning playwright who gained widespread recognition for her play The Clean House – winning the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize as the best English Language play written by a woman. An alum of 13P and of New Dramatists, she won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2006.
Ruhl was the recipient of the PEN Center Award for a mid-career playwright, the Whiting Writers award, the Feminist Press’ Forty under Forty award, a Lilly Award, and is the latest recipient of the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. She is currently on the faculty at Yale School of Drama.
Her plays include Stage Kiss; In the Next Room, or the vibrator play; Passion Play; Dead Man’s Cell Phone; Melancholy Play (a musical with Todd Almond); Eurydice; Orlando; Demeter in the City; Late: a cowboy song; Three Sisters; Dear Elizabeth; The Oldest Boy; and most recently For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday.
“Insightful, fresh and funny, the play is as rich in thought as it is in feeling.” – New York Times
Director: Jeffrey Jay Fowler Featuring: Rebecca Davis, Stuart Halusz, Kingsley Judd, Tariro Mavondo, Jo Morris, Tom Stokes, Alison van Reeken Set & Costume Designer: Alicia Clements Lighting Designer: Lucy Birkinshaw Sound Designer/Composer: Ash Gibson Greig Voice Coach: Luzita Fereday Fight Director: Andy Fraser Stage Manager: Georgia Landre-Ord Assistant Stage Manager: Georgia Smith
In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play
Heath Ledger Theatre – State Theatre Centre of WA, William Street, Perth
Season: 24 October – 4 November 2018
Information and Bookings: www.bsstc.com.au
Image: Stuart Halusz and Rebecca Davis feature in In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play – photo by Richard Jefferson