September 21, 2011|Chris Jones | Theater critic
In the atypically droll turn-your-cell-phone off announcement currently heard at the Victory Gardens, a female voice admonishes patrons not to even think about turning their phones to vibrate.
Well, it sets the scene for a Sarah Ruhl play, a very clever and amusing Sarah Ruhl play, penned in 2009, set at the dawn of the age of electricity and intensely concerned with the early days of one of the more pleasurable uses of direct current. Or should that be alternating current? Perchance it depends, like so many things in the sensorial life, on one's personal preference, or mood of the moment.
The mouthful title of the play, "In the Next Room or the vibrator play," suggests that Ruhl was torn between the title she really wanted and the one that would actually sell tickets and get the script produced, and thus shrewdly decided to go with both. Regardless, it is based on a rare and savvy premise that manages to be titillating and amusing (rest assured that artfully placed sheets and skirts prevent another visit from the authorities to the once-notorious Biograph Theatre), even as it allows for some serious observations on the effects of the Victorian inclination to suppress female sexuality.
We watch a well-meaning but self-involved 1880s doctor, played by the deliciously clueless Mark L. Montgomery in director Sandy Shinner's superbly cast production. His surgery is conveniently located in the home he shares with his younger wife, played by Kate Fry. This man of science is a proponent of the use of a new electrical invention, a revolutionary implement that appears capable, when applied to just the right spot, of reducing hysteria in women like Mrs. Daldry (Polly Noonan, Ruhl's longtime muse), who arrives with a husband (Larry Grimm) who complains of finding his wife weepy "at odd moments during the day." That problem, it turns out, can easily be solved by turning this invention into, well, a kind of hands-on Victorian app.
The doctor is struck by the remarkable efficacy of his machine on his patients. "They laugh and weep at the same time," he marvels. "Sometimes, they even call for God."
The joke here, of course, is that neither the doctor nor his nurse (Patricia Kane) have any idea that the women are experiencing an orgasm, rather than an electrically induced cure for some ailment or other. The Victorian awareness of the occurrence was, to say, the least, limited. Ruhl exploits this premise, which puts the audience in a position of superiority, which audiences invariably like, very deftly. Not all the plot twists are surprise, but they all feel rooted in a certain historical logic. Before long, the patients start arriving at their appointments with a certain spring in their step and, inevitably, the doctor's wife starts to wonder about all the noises coming from the next room.
If that's all this play contained, it would be a limited amusement. But much of interest transpires in the rest of the house, where the aforementioned wife is struggling to nurse her own baby, and finds herself persuaded to hire a wet nurse (played with complexity by Tamberla Perry). In other words, female sexual awakenings take place off to the side; in the foreground is a crisis of motherhood and marriage, both of which are very moving in Shinner's production. It will be no surprise to Ruhl fans that she smartly approaches her sexy topic here with a kind of glancing blow. There is a Victorian peep-show, but the Ruhl main attraction is full of more substantial stuff.
This production features a set from Jack Magaw full of more artful detail than has been the recent case at the Biograph. And it bops along delightfully thanks in no small measure to a remarkable central performance by Kate Fry. This top-drawer, ever-in-the-moment Chicago actress has a rare ability to forge deeply empathetic characters as chirpy and restless as they are warm and vulnerable. Fry, whose natural impulse is always to beat back eccentricity and affectation, brings out the best in both her director Shinner (Fry checks any tendency toward the cute and keeps the show rooted and moving) and Noonan, who is a wholly different and much quirkier kind of actress. You really feel for both Fry and Noonan's creations here; you find yourself wishing for these women all of the pleasures that electricity might offer.
Ruhl, though, is noting that the man in the next room wielding the machine — not to mention the husband in the waiting room looking for results — can both give and take away. And there is nothing Mr. Thomas Edison can teach those dudes about that.
cjones5@tribune.com
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When: Through Oct. 9
Where: Victory Gardens Biograph Theatre, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave.
Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes
Tickets: $20-$50 at 773-871-3000 or victorygardens.org