‘In the Next Room’ stages orgasms but offers little stimulation

Playwright Sarah Ruhl puts it out there in the title—this show is about sexuality.

But even though the actors of “In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)”—now playing at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre—strip down to expose the naturalness of suppressed human sexuality, the production fails to excite.

At the dawn of the electrical age, Dr. Givings, played by Michael Cerveris, experiments with a new medical technique, to relieve women plagued by hysteria by administering vibration therapy to release the tension and overwhelming energy in the womb.

Thanks to electricity, the vibrator finds its place in therapeutic medicine. Dr. Givings administers therapy to two consistent patients throughout the show—Mrs. Daldry (Maria Dizzia) and the quintessential male patient Leo Irving (Chandler Williams). As Dr. Givings’ wife, played by Laura Benanti, becomes curious of the intimacy her husband shares with his patients in the next room, the question emerges—does the orgasm belong in the next room or in the bedroom?

But, it takes Ruhl until the final scene to arrive at this all-knowing question.

The entire first act is a parade of fake orgasms, the only entertaining part being the question which actor can fake it best. Preoccupied with the idea to put orgasms on stage, Ruhl loses sight of her characters.

“In the Next Room” is not devoid of plot—in the main room, Mrs. Givings has a newborn girl she cannot feed, because of which her husband asks her to hire a wet nurse. The script alludes to challenges to Mrs. Givings’ womanhood and role as mother, but the story line is underdeveloped.

Ruhl re-approaches the subject in Act Two, when Mrs. Givings finally decries her distress and desperation to express her feminine needs. Too little, too late.

The individual performers develop living personas on the stage, albeit without distinct purposes. Benanti’s girlish whim separates her from the cast and personifies the freedom Ruhl pushes for in today’s society. Cerveris carries himself with a professionalism and distance that suits the uptight doctor, though at times his diplomacy drifts into blandness. Dizzia’s jerked movements and pursed expressions create the ideal patient—fascinatingly quirky and hopelessly self-conscious.

But beneath the flowery ornamentation the play lacks substance. Ruhl fails to incite passion in the audience. Her message—that orgasms and emotion shouldn’t have to stay in the next room—is half-baked, and the audience seems uninterested while working out the meaning of the show.

Like the orgasmic sexuality it is meant to publicize, the point of “In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)” lies buried beneath the bedsheets.