In the Next Room was produced by Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago, IL from September 9 to October 9, 2011. The production dramaturg was Kristin Leahey.
The three main avenues that Leahey and the production team used of communicating dramaturgical information were lobby displays in the theatre, notes and printed information in the program, and electronic resources on the theatre's website.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Glossary
Here's a glossary of potentially unfamiliar references in the script, with the page numbers on which they first appear in parentheses.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Electricity on Video
Here's a short documentary about Edison’s smear campaign and the electrocution of Topsy the Elephant:
And here's some of Nicola Tesla’s demonstrations as seen in The Prestige:
Race after the Civil War
- In the decades following the Civil War, African Americans struggled to exercise their newly acquired civil rights and obligations. Immediately following the war, these "new" United States citizens asserted their civil rights, participating eagerly in government. Their early gains quickly evaporated in the toxic political climate of Southern Reconstruction. By the end of the 1870s, southern whites had effectively proscribed most blacks from voting or participating in state and local government (the law denied the vote to women of any race).
- Economic opportunities remained limited for most African Americans in the decades following the Civil War. Racism, economic downturns and agricultural crises combined to encourage hundreds of thousands of southern blacks to migrate north in search of a better life. Within a single generation, a distinctly urban lifestyle and culture developed.
- Religion was an especially powerful and unifying force. Like the churches of newly arrived European immigrants, African American churches offered their members far more than a place to worship. Churches promoted cultural solidarity and provided spiritual and community support.
- Even in the North, however, African Americans did not enjoy the same social and economic mobility experienced by millions of European immigrants arriving in the same period. Employers preferred to hire native-born whites and immigrants for higher paying industrial jobs. Many believed that blacks were farmers by nature and were thus ill suited to industrial employment. To make matters worse, most trade unions excluded African Americans, effectively shutting them out of the labor movement. These economic and social conditions limited employment opportunities for black men to the most taxing, dangerous and menial positions. Opportunities for black women were still more restricted, confined mainly to domestic service in white households.
- In the year 1890, the percentage of black women who were gainfully employed more than doubled that of white women. This trend remained up until 1940.
- Interracial relationships did happen but were rare.
- In the 1880s, out of 3,808,334 recorded unions in the U.S. in which the husband was between the ages of 20-40, 3,932 were interracial. That’s barely over 0.1%.
Information from University of Massachusetts.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Victorian Fashion
For Women
As in the previous decade, emphasis remained on the back of the skirt, with fullness gradually rising from behind the knees to just below the waist. The fullness over the bottom was balanced by a fuller, lower chest, achieved by rigid corseting, creating an S-shaped silhouette.
The bustle returned to fashion and reached its greatest proportions circa 1886-1888, extending almost straight out from the back waist to support a profusion of drapery, frills, swags, and ribbons.
Bodices were very tightly fitted as a result of darts and princess seams. In the early 19th century dropped waists were common, creating a very long torso. Most ended in a point just below the waist.
Corsets stressed a woman's sexuality, exaggerating hips and bust by contrast with a tiny waist. Women's ball gowns bared the shoulders and the tops of the breasts. The jersey dresses of the 1880s may have covered the body, but the stretchy novel fabric fitted the body "like a glove."
Day dresses generally had high necklines, and shoulder width was emphasized with tippets or wide collars that rested on the gigot sleeves. Summer afternoon dresses might have wide, low necklines similar to evening gowns, but with long sleeves. Skirts were pleated into the waistband of the bodice, and held out with starched petticoats of linen or cotton.
The usual undergarment was a combination, a camisole with attached knee- or calf-length drawers, worn under the corset, bustle, and petticoat. Woolen combinations were recommended for health, especially when engaging in fashionable sports such as riding or tennis.
For Men
Three piece suits, "ditto suits," consisting of a sack coat with matching waistcoat (U.S. vest) and trousers (called in the UK a "lounge suit") continued as an informal alternative to the contrasting frock coat, waistcoat and trousers.
The cutaway morning coat was still worn for formal day occasions in Europe and major cities elsewhere, with a dress shirt and an ascot tie. The most formal evening dress remained a dark tail coat and trousers with a dark waistcoat. Evening wear was worn with a white bow tie and a shirt with a winged collar.
Here are some video examples of typical fashion:
As in the previous decade, emphasis remained on the back of the skirt, with fullness gradually rising from behind the knees to just below the waist. The fullness over the bottom was balanced by a fuller, lower chest, achieved by rigid corseting, creating an S-shaped silhouette.
The bustle returned to fashion and reached its greatest proportions circa 1886-1888, extending almost straight out from the back waist to support a profusion of drapery, frills, swags, and ribbons.
Bodices were very tightly fitted as a result of darts and princess seams. In the early 19th century dropped waists were common, creating a very long torso. Most ended in a point just below the waist.
Corsets stressed a woman's sexuality, exaggerating hips and bust by contrast with a tiny waist. Women's ball gowns bared the shoulders and the tops of the breasts. The jersey dresses of the 1880s may have covered the body, but the stretchy novel fabric fitted the body "like a glove."
Day dresses generally had high necklines, and shoulder width was emphasized with tippets or wide collars that rested on the gigot sleeves. Summer afternoon dresses might have wide, low necklines similar to evening gowns, but with long sleeves. Skirts were pleated into the waistband of the bodice, and held out with starched petticoats of linen or cotton.
The usual undergarment was a combination, a camisole with attached knee- or calf-length drawers, worn under the corset, bustle, and petticoat. Woolen combinations were recommended for health, especially when engaging in fashionable sports such as riding or tennis.
For Men
Three piece suits, "ditto suits," consisting of a sack coat with matching waistcoat (U.S. vest) and trousers (called in the UK a "lounge suit") continued as an informal alternative to the contrasting frock coat, waistcoat and trousers.
The cutaway morning coat was still worn for formal day occasions in Europe and major cities elsewhere, with a dress shirt and an ascot tie. The most formal evening dress remained a dark tail coat and trousers with a dark waistcoat. Evening wear was worn with a white bow tie and a shirt with a winged collar.
Here are some video examples of typical fashion:
Gender Roles in the Victorian Era
In the Victorian Era, men were considered the active agents, who expended energy, while women were sedentary, storing and conserving energy. Victorian theories of evolution believed that these feminine and masculine attributes traced back to the lowest forms of life. A dichotomy of temperaments defined feminine and masculine: an anabolic nature, which nurtured, versus a katabolic nature, which released energy, respectively. Such beliefs laid the groundwork for, or rather arose from, the separation of spheres for men and women. According to this model, since men only concerned themselves with fertilization, they could also spend energies in other arenas, allowing for "the male capacity for abstract reason...along with an attachment to the idea of abstract justice...[which] was a sign of highly-evolved life." On the other hand, woman's heavy role in pregnancy, menstruation (considered a time of illness, debilitation, and temporary insanity), and child-rearing left very little energy left for other pursuits. As a result, woman's position in society came from biological evolution--she had to stay at home in order to conserve her energy, while the man could and needed to go out and hunt or forage. This belief let to the theory of "separate spheres," meaning, the women controlled the world of the home and the men controlled the world outside it. Although regarded as a practice which venerated women, in actuality it forced them in to social and economic subservience.
Due to the fact that a woman's place was in the home, motherhood was considered “the crowning achievement of a woman’s life.” Marriage signified a woman's maturity and respectability, but motherhood was confirmation that she had entered the world of womanly virtue and female fulfillment. For a woman not to become a mother meant she was liable to be labeled inadequate, a failure, or in some way abnormal. Motherhood was expected of a married woman, and the childless single woman was a figure to be pitied. She was often encouraged to find work caring for children--as a governess or a nursery maid--presumably to compensate her for her loss.
For further information on marriage and women, check this out!
Sources: The Victorian Web, BBC
Due to the fact that a woman's place was in the home, motherhood was considered “the crowning achievement of a woman’s life.” Marriage signified a woman's maturity and respectability, but motherhood was confirmation that she had entered the world of womanly virtue and female fulfillment. For a woman not to become a mother meant she was liable to be labeled inadequate, a failure, or in some way abnormal. Motherhood was expected of a married woman, and the childless single woman was a figure to be pitied. She was often encouraged to find work caring for children--as a governess or a nursery maid--presumably to compensate her for her loss.
For further information on marriage and women, check this out!
Sources: The Victorian Web, BBC
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Lincoln Center Smarties
Lincoln Center's 2009 production of In the Next Room had some really great dramaturgy. Here's a link to their companion magazine for the play--it's got some beautiful images, and some fascinating perspectives--everything from Emily Dickinson poems to an article by Annie Sprinkle, porn-star-turned-Ph.D.
Coincidental...
For fun...here's the trailer for Hysteria, a 2011 film that premiered at Toronto Film Festival, set in London in 1880--billed as "a romantic comedy about the invention of the vibrator."
Despite sharing the same historical moment as jumping-off point, Hysteria seems to bear very little resemblance to In the Next Room. In a way, it's the play that Sarah Ruhl didn't want to write--you might call it, "The Vibrator Movie."
Despite sharing the same historical moment as jumping-off point, Hysteria seems to bear very little resemblance to In the Next Room. In a way, it's the play that Sarah Ruhl didn't want to write--you might call it, "The Vibrator Movie."
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Victorian Ladies and Gents
Here's some period image research for some of the characters.
Source: How to Be a Retronaut
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| I love this image for Elizabeth and baby Lotty! Pretty remarkable that this was an actual photograph from the time. |
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| This jaunty fellow reminds me of Mr. Irving |
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| A lady taking off her clothes to be in nature! Sounds familiar... |
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| And here are some Victorian portraits of married couples--shows you the formality that characterized the relationship |
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| This picture is good for the setting of the Givings' living room, but I also love the expression on this woman's face! Like she just heard or shared a delightfully naughty secret... |
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| This is a lovely image that reminds me of Mrs. Givings--waiting, ladylike, in the next room. |
Source: How to Be a Retronaut
Vintage Vibrator Ads
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| An alternative to the vibrator (designed to produce a similar effect...) |
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| An early 1900s vibrator unit |
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| The 1902 retail vibrator set |
Medicine, Hysteria, and Vibrators (oh my!)
Women’s bodies and women’s health
Throughout history, men used images of the female body and the female mind that proved women belonged at home making babies.
In the late 19th century, the main medical and biological theories about gender could be summed up by "separate bodies, separate roles." Male doctors argued that women were frailer than men--their skulls were smaller, and their muscles more delicate. But their key argument, a new invention of this era, was the following: from puberty to menopause, the entire female body and mind was controlled by the reproductive apparatus. As they put it:
Medical practitioners thought of the human body as an engine, operating on a fixed amount of energy. If you applied a lot of energy to one bodily system, they believed, you would deprive others of energy. So for example, women who went to college would use too much energy on their brain and hence would become sterile or produce neurotic children.
When things went wrong...
Since the very first physicians practiced medicine in ancient Greece, women were frequently diagnosed with "hysteria"--a cluster of emotional symptoms that were thought to result from diseases of the female sexual and reproductive organs ("hysteria" comes from the Greek word hystera, meaning "womb"). Neurasthenia was a new medical diagnosis invented by George Beard in the 1870s--a variation of essentially the same thing. Understood as exhaustion of the nervous system because of a lack of nervous energy, neurasthenia was the name for vague, chronic complaints in adult women, including anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability, nervousness, erotic fantasies, and moisture inside the vagina (though hysteria/neurasthenia was usually applied to women, it was occasionally diagnosed in men--as we see in In the Next Room with the character of Leo Irving).
One famous treatment for hysteria was the so-called "rest cure," made famous by Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper." Under this treatment, women patients were ordered to spend months in bed, were not allowed to read, write, or exercise, they were force fed until they were fat--essentially creating an artificial pregnancy (because this was a woman's ultimate purpose and destiny anyway). The rest cure was usually pretty counter-productive--Perkins Gilman herself endured it, to no avail, and ultimately found herself cured of her post-partum depression only when she began a regimen of work on her writing and physical exercise. In In the Next Room, Mrs. Daldry makes reference to having attempted the rest cure to little success--"I do nothing but rest!" she says when Dr. Givings inquires about whether she has tried the "usual remedies" (pg. 12).
"Pelvic Massage"
Besides the rest cure, for centuries doctors had been treating women for hysteria by focusing on the uterus directly. The "pelvic massage" was intended to provide hysterical women sudden, dramatic relief through "hysterical paroxysm" (orgasm). However, this was time-consuming and hard work for the doctors.
In 1883, Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville patented the first electromechanical vibrator. It was an immediate hit--it produced paroxysm quickly, safely, reliably, and inexpensively.
In 1902, the American company Hamilton Beach patented the first electric vibrator available for retail sale, making the vibrator the fifth domestic appliance to be electrified, after the sewing machine, fan, tea kettle, and toaster, and about a decade before the vacuum cleaner and electric iron. Advertisements appeared in such magazines as "Women's Home Companion" and the the "Sears & Roebuck Catalogue." The vibrators were not seen as sexual because men believed that women were incapable of sexual desire and pleasure. Women were socialized to believe that "ladies" had no sex drive, and were merely passive receptacles for men's unbridled lust, which they had to endure to hang on to their husbands and have children: Queen Victoria herself supposedly advised her daughter on her wedding night to "lie back and think of England."
However, with the invention of motion pictures, vibrators started turning up in pornography and gained an unsavory reputation. By the 1920s, they had become socially unacceptable. Vibrator ads disappeared from the consumer media. From the late 1920s until the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s, they were difficult to find.
Sources: Lecture notes from "Medicine in American Society" course (Northwestern University, Spring 2011), the Vibrator Museum, Wikipedia, "The Astonishing History of Vibrators"
Throughout history, men used images of the female body and the female mind that proved women belonged at home making babies.
In the late 19th century, the main medical and biological theories about gender could be summed up by "separate bodies, separate roles." Male doctors argued that women were frailer than men--their skulls were smaller, and their muscles more delicate. But their key argument, a new invention of this era, was the following: from puberty to menopause, the entire female body and mind was controlled by the reproductive apparatus. As they put it:
"Woman is a moral, a sexual, a germiferous, a gestative, and a parturient creature."Or:
"It is as if the Almighty, in creating the female sex, has taken the uterus and built up a woman around it."Hence, whatever happened in the central nervous system had direct implications on the health of uterus, and vice versa--whatever happened (or failed to happen) in the uterus had immediate reverberations in the central nervous system.
Medical practitioners thought of the human body as an engine, operating on a fixed amount of energy. If you applied a lot of energy to one bodily system, they believed, you would deprive others of energy. So for example, women who went to college would use too much energy on their brain and hence would become sterile or produce neurotic children.
When things went wrong...
Since the very first physicians practiced medicine in ancient Greece, women were frequently diagnosed with "hysteria"--a cluster of emotional symptoms that were thought to result from diseases of the female sexual and reproductive organs ("hysteria" comes from the Greek word hystera, meaning "womb"). Neurasthenia was a new medical diagnosis invented by George Beard in the 1870s--a variation of essentially the same thing. Understood as exhaustion of the nervous system because of a lack of nervous energy, neurasthenia was the name for vague, chronic complaints in adult women, including anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability, nervousness, erotic fantasies, and moisture inside the vagina (though hysteria/neurasthenia was usually applied to women, it was occasionally diagnosed in men--as we see in In the Next Room with the character of Leo Irving).
One famous treatment for hysteria was the so-called "rest cure," made famous by Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper." Under this treatment, women patients were ordered to spend months in bed, were not allowed to read, write, or exercise, they were force fed until they were fat--essentially creating an artificial pregnancy (because this was a woman's ultimate purpose and destiny anyway). The rest cure was usually pretty counter-productive--Perkins Gilman herself endured it, to no avail, and ultimately found herself cured of her post-partum depression only when she began a regimen of work on her writing and physical exercise. In In the Next Room, Mrs. Daldry makes reference to having attempted the rest cure to little success--"I do nothing but rest!" she says when Dr. Givings inquires about whether she has tried the "usual remedies" (pg. 12).
"Pelvic Massage"
Besides the rest cure, for centuries doctors had been treating women for hysteria by focusing on the uterus directly. The "pelvic massage" was intended to provide hysterical women sudden, dramatic relief through "hysterical paroxysm" (orgasm). However, this was time-consuming and hard work for the doctors.
In 1883, Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville patented the first electromechanical vibrator. It was an immediate hit--it produced paroxysm quickly, safely, reliably, and inexpensively.
In 1902, the American company Hamilton Beach patented the first electric vibrator available for retail sale, making the vibrator the fifth domestic appliance to be electrified, after the sewing machine, fan, tea kettle, and toaster, and about a decade before the vacuum cleaner and electric iron. Advertisements appeared in such magazines as "Women's Home Companion" and the the "Sears & Roebuck Catalogue." The vibrators were not seen as sexual because men believed that women were incapable of sexual desire and pleasure. Women were socialized to believe that "ladies" had no sex drive, and were merely passive receptacles for men's unbridled lust, which they had to endure to hang on to their husbands and have children: Queen Victoria herself supposedly advised her daughter on her wedding night to "lie back and think of England."
However, with the invention of motion pictures, vibrators started turning up in pornography and gained an unsavory reputation. By the 1920s, they had become socially unacceptable. Vibrator ads disappeared from the consumer media. From the late 1920s until the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s, they were difficult to find.
Sources: Lecture notes from "Medicine in American Society" course (Northwestern University, Spring 2011), the Vibrator Museum, Wikipedia, "The Astonishing History of Vibrators"
Friday, October 14, 2011
Production History
In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play premiered on February 5, 2009 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, CA. It was the theatre's 50th world premiere. The show was directed by British theatre director and Berkeley Rep Associate Artistic Director Les Waters, a known pioneer of new work and of new playwrights like Sarah Ruhl, Will Eno, and Anne Washburn. The production team featured sets by Annie Smart, costumes by David Zinn, lighting by Russell H. Champ, sound by Bray Poor, music by Jonathan Bell, and production stage management by Michael Suenkel. The cast comprised Hannah Cabell (Catherine Givings), Joaquín Torres (Leo Irving), Maria Dizzia (Sabrina Daldry), Paul Niebanck (Dr. Givings), Melle Powers (Elizabeth), Stacy Ross (Annie), and John Leonard Thompson (Mr. Daldry).
Here are a few visual snippets from the Berkeley Rep production: promotional photos here and video below:
The play then moved to Broadway, where it opened November 19, 2009 at the Lyceum Theatre at the Lincoln Theater Center, and closed January 10, 2010. It was both Ruhl's and Les Waters's Broadway debut. Despite its brief run, it was well reviewed. The production team was the same as the Berkeley production, but the cast was altered. The Broadway cast was as follows: Laura Benanti (Mrs. Givings), Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Elizabeth), Michael Cerveris (Dr. Givings), Maria Dizzia (Mrs. Daldry), Thomas Jay Ryan (Mr. Daldry), Wendy Rich Stetson (Annie), and Chandler Williams (Leo Irving).
There has been an explosion of regional productions of In the Next Room since its run on Broadway. It has been produced all across the country as well as internationally. In the U.S., some highlights include productions at The Actor’s Theatre in Phoenix, A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle, Theatre Workshop of Nantucket, Playmaker's Repertory Company in Chapel Hill, Woolly Mammoth in Washington, D.C., South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, San Diego Repertory Theatre, SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas, and Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. There have been international productions at the Sydney Theatre Company in Sydney, Australia and at the Tarragon Theatre Company in Toronto, Canada. There also has been a university production, at the Brooklyn College Department of Theatre.
Here are a few visual snippets from the Berkeley Rep production: promotional photos here and video below:
The play then moved to Broadway, where it opened November 19, 2009 at the Lyceum Theatre at the Lincoln Theater Center, and closed January 10, 2010. It was both Ruhl's and Les Waters's Broadway debut. Despite its brief run, it was well reviewed. The production team was the same as the Berkeley production, but the cast was altered. The Broadway cast was as follows: Laura Benanti (Mrs. Givings), Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Elizabeth), Michael Cerveris (Dr. Givings), Maria Dizzia (Mrs. Daldry), Thomas Jay Ryan (Mr. Daldry), Wendy Rich Stetson (Annie), and Chandler Williams (Leo Irving).
There has been an explosion of regional productions of In the Next Room since its run on Broadway. It has been produced all across the country as well as internationally. In the U.S., some highlights include productions at The Actor’s Theatre in Phoenix, A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle, Theatre Workshop of Nantucket, Playmaker's Repertory Company in Chapel Hill, Woolly Mammoth in Washington, D.C., South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, San Diego Repertory Theatre, SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston, Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas, and Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. There have been international productions at the Sydney Theatre Company in Sydney, Australia and at the Tarragon Theatre Company in Toronto, Canada. There also has been a university production, at the Brooklyn College Department of Theatre.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Sarah Ruhl on "Vibrator Play"
Early vibrators + breastfeeding + the dawn of electricity = .....
Ruhl first came up with the idea for In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play when a friend, Luke Walden, gave her the book The Technology of Orgasm by Rachel P. Maines. She found the idea fascinating of late 19th-century male doctors inducing orgasm or "paroxysm" in their female patients to relieve symptoms of hysteria--a phenomenon seen as medical, not sexual.
At the same time, she had just given birth to twins and became interested in the history of breastfeeding. "The more I learned about wet-nurses," she said, "the more I wanted to spend time with them."
The last puzzle piece in the making of In the Next Room was Ruhl's first image of the play, which was of a mother turning on and off the lights to entertain her infant.
The combination of these three influences sparked a uniquely powerful and personal play. As Chris Jones said in the Chicago Tribune:
Why the title?
Ruhl notes that while the play’s working title was The Vibrator Play, she ultimately decided to use In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play, partially as a nod to the nineteenth-century tradition of "or" subtitles, but also to prevent a reductive, prurient view of the play as merely a sex comedy, when she sees it more as a play about intimacy, marriage, motherhood, and the body.
Why this play now?
More than just a commentary on "look how silly we were in the olden days," Ruhl sees the play as a reflection of how we still separate sex and intimacy. Here what she says:
Sources: "An Interview with Sarah Ruhl" from the Playbill from the Victory Gardens production of In the Next Room, Downstage Center interview with Sarah Ruhl, Chris Jones article about the fall Chicago theatre season, Interview from the Lincoln Center production’s blog, Interview from the Wilma Theater’s dramaturg, Interview from Time Out New York
Ruhl first came up with the idea for In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play when a friend, Luke Walden, gave her the book The Technology of Orgasm by Rachel P. Maines. She found the idea fascinating of late 19th-century male doctors inducing orgasm or "paroxysm" in their female patients to relieve symptoms of hysteria--a phenomenon seen as medical, not sexual.
At the same time, she had just given birth to twins and became interested in the history of breastfeeding. "The more I learned about wet-nurses," she said, "the more I wanted to spend time with them."
The last puzzle piece in the making of In the Next Room was Ruhl's first image of the play, which was of a mother turning on and off the lights to entertain her infant.
The combination of these three influences sparked a uniquely powerful and personal play. As Chris Jones said in the Chicago Tribune:
"Most writers penning a play about the early days of the vibrator, wherein this instrument of pleasure was considered to be a purely medical device ideal for the curing of 'hysterical' women, would stick with that theme. After all, it's not difficult to spin an evening around the absurdity of Victorian women going to their doctors for an orgasm, without either party knowing what was taking place. Nor is it hard to imagine a scenario where the wife of one of those doctors would start wondering what her husband was doing, and why he was not doing it to her.
Had Ruhl...just done that, In the Next Room would still have been a success. Maybe more so, commercially speaking. But Ruhl wrote this play shortly after having twins, and a good chunk of her play is not concerned with electronic pleasures but with the anxieties induced in a vibrant new mother by a patriarchal approach to women's health and well-being. The vibrator whirs on naked skin in the next room, and that's a lot of fun for everyone, but Ruhl clearly lives with her leading character right in the front parlor, where the game is life itself."
Why the title?
Ruhl notes that while the play’s working title was The Vibrator Play, she ultimately decided to use In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play, partially as a nod to the nineteenth-century tradition of "or" subtitles, but also to prevent a reductive, prurient view of the play as merely a sex comedy, when she sees it more as a play about intimacy, marriage, motherhood, and the body.
Why this play now?
More than just a commentary on "look how silly we were in the olden days," Ruhl sees the play as a reflection of how we still separate sex and intimacy. Here what she says:
"Ultimately the play is about intimacy. And I think in the age we live in, raw emotional intimacy is far more radical than physical intimacy or selling sex, which we see on every block. We see radical emotional intimacy far less frequently."
"In a way, I feel like sexuality’s been flipped: In the past, they compartmentalized and were so repressed, but today pornography has taken over the language of our sex lives and made it so public that it actually splits our bodies off from our emotions. We have no privacy. Selling jeans is pornography, Sarah Palin’s pornography, everything’s pornographic, so what does that do to our intimate private lives?"
Sources: "An Interview with Sarah Ruhl" from the Playbill from the Victory Gardens production of In the Next Room, Downstage Center interview with Sarah Ruhl, Chris Jones article about the fall Chicago theatre season, Interview from the Lincoln Center production’s blog, Interview from the Wilma Theater’s dramaturg, Interview from Time Out New York
Sarah Ruhl's Style
She says...
"I like to see people speaking ordinary words in strange places, or people speaking extraordinary words in ordinary places."
--Sarah Ruhl
Other people say...
"Ruhl wants to project the delights of pretense, 'the interplay between the actual and the magical."
--The New Yorker
"But if Ruhl’s demeanor is unassuming, her plays are bold. Her nonlinear form of realism--full of astonishments, surprises, and mysteries--is low on exposition and psychology. 'I try to interpret how people subjectively experience life,' she has said. 'Everyone has a great, horrible opera inside him. I feel that my plays, in a way, are very old-fashioned. They’re pre-Freudian in the sense that the Greeks and Shakespeare worked with similar assumptions. Catharsis isn’t a wound being excavated from childhood.'"
--The New Yorker
"She is known for charting complex currents of desire and broaching weighty topics such as bereavement with a light, whimsical touch...Ruhl is an optimist; her heroes and heroines resolve their difficulties and attain happiness."
--James Al-Shamma
We say...
Ruhl is drawn to the quirks and intricacies of relationships, especially in crazy circumstances. But amidst all of the mythology and absurdity, she looks for that humanity, that big story, that "bad opera" inside of everyone.
Some of her common structural elements include:
- mythology
- dreams
- play within a play
- heightened language
Some of her common themes are:
- intimacy
- marriage
- optimism
- whimsy
- theatre affecting real life
- earnestness
- heroism
What else she's written
- Melancholy Play
- Tilly’s melancholy is of an exquisite quality. She turns her melancholy into a sexy thing, and every stranger she meets falls in love with her. One day, inexplicably, Tilly becomes happy, and wreaks havoc on the lives of her paramours. Frances, Tilly’s hairdresser, becomes so melancholy that she turns into an almond. It is up to Tilly to get her back.
- Virtual Meditations #1
- An experiment in interactive drama. Two volunteers become the actors in the play by providing their faces and names to virtual actors, and their measurable biological signals are used as input to influence the performance of the play. Their desires and fears of touching each other, of holding hands with a stranger, become integral parts of the play itself, changing our perception of what is traditionally thought of as a theatrical experience.
- Passion Play
- A three-part play that explores the lives and obsessions of people presenting the Passion Play in Queen Elizabeth I’s England, Hitler’s Germany, and Reagan’s America
- Eurydice
- A modern retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, focusing on the point of view of Eurydice and her reunion with her father in the underworld
- Late: A Cowboy Song
- Mary, always late and always married, meets a lady cowboy outside the city limits of Pittsburgh who teaches her how to ride a horse. Mary’s husband, Crick, buys a painting with the last of their savings. Mary and Crick have a baby, but they can’t decide on the baby’s name, or the baby’s gender. A story of one woman’s education and her search to find true love outside the box
- Orlando
- Meet Virginia Woolf's Orlando, your typical Elizabethan Man: a favorite of the Queen, madly in love with a Russian Princess, fleeing an Archduchess, and waking up one fine day in Constantinople to find he has become, of all things, a woman. She survives three centuries grappling with what it means to live fully in the present, in our own skin, in our own gender, and in our own time.
- The Clean House
- A young Brazilian woman, Matilde, who hates cleaning, is hired by a couple who are both doctors. The husband brings home a patient, his lover, who is dying of cancer, while the wife’s sister does all the cleaning for Matilde, whose life ambition is to come up with the perfect joke.
- Demeter in the City
- A retelling of the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, set in modern day Los Angeles. Demeter is a heroin addicted mother in Compton whose daughter is kept from her first by Child Services and later, by a College Republican.
- Dead Man’s Cell Phone
- A woman becomes completely consumed by a dead man’s life when she answers his cell phone. An exploration of what love and relationships mean in our crazy, digital, over-convenient age.
- Stage Kiss
- When ex-lovers He and She are thrown together as romantic leads in a long-forgotten 1930s melodrama, they quickly lose touch with reality as the story onstage begins to follow them offstage. Stage Kiss is a hilarious, off-beat fairy tale about what happens when lovers share a stage kiss…or when actors share a real one.
Sarah Ruhl: A Biography
Sarah Ruhl was born in Wilmette, IL in 1974. Theatre was a part of her life from a young age--her mother worked as an actress at the Piven Theatre Workshop--but she finally went to Brown University with the intention of studying poetry. However, in her sophomore year she took Paula Vogel's playwriting class:
"[Ruhl was a] sophomore, but I thought at first she was a senior: she was quiet and serious, but so obviously possessed a mind that came at aesthetics from a unique angle. I assigned an exercise: to write a short play with a dog as protagonist. Sarah Ruhl wrote of her father’s death from that unique angle: a dog is waiting by the door, waiting for the family to come home, unaware that the family is at his master’s funeral, unaware of the concept of death.And, oh yes, the play was written with Kabuki stage techniques, in gorgeous, emotionally vivid language. I sat with this short play in my lap in my study, and sobbed. I interrupted my then partner, now wife, Anne Sterling, at her computer in her study, and read it to her, and the two of us shared that playworld, and the recognition of who this young woman could become: Sarah Ruhl." (via BOMB)
After getting her MFA in 2001, her play Late: A Cowboy Song premiered at the Clubbed Thumb in New York City two years later, but it wasn't until 2004 and her play The Clean House premiered at the Yale Repertory Theatre in 2005 that Ruhl gained widespread recognition. It also garnered her a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize.
The next year she was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship "Genius Grant," which awarded her $500,000 dollars over the next 5 years to work on her plays.
Ruhl's other awards include:
Pen Award
NAACP Image Award nomination
Fourth Freedom Forum Award
Helen Merrill Award
Whiting Writers' Award
Fourth Freedom Forum Award
Helen Merrill Award
Whiting Writers' Award
Sarah Ruhl is also a member of The New Dramatists.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Hello!
Hello there! Welcome to the production dramaturgy blog for Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play! Read on for everything you would want to know...
Charlotte, Shannon, and Jessica
Charlotte, Shannon, and Jessica
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