There’s a popular idea that the reason there were no laws outlawing lesbianism in Victorian England because the Queen could not believe that such a thing existed. These Victorian myths and mystery surrounding female sexuality form the basis of Sarah Ruhl’s comedy In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play).

It concerns the patients, relatives and staff attending the clinic of Doctor Givings, a turn of the century physician who utilises new technology and old ideas to cure “female hysteria” in the well-heeled women of upstate New York.
It’s a play that attempts to marry big themes of sex, homosexuality and class to a Wildean comedy of manners and – for the most part – the union is a fruitful one.

Race and religion are also touched on without being too heavy-handed.
 However, it sometimes felt like Ruhl tried a little too hard to address as many issues as she could in her script and some of the sub-plots felt redundant.
The majority of the cast have to grapple with a cumbersome Yankee accent. It can’t be easy rattling off fast-paced, old-fashioned dialogue in an accent that sounds like you need another nostril to use convincingly and cast members managed with varying degrees of success.

Hera Dunleavy, who after her appearance in Mary Stuart last year seems to have carved herself a niche in the ATC troupe as the dependable below-stairs confidante shines here in her role as closet romantic Annie, and Lavinia Uhlia brings dignity and pathos to her role as a “post-Civil War Madonna”. I found some of the “above-stairs” characters a little too shrill but in a play about hysterical ladies, that’s the point.

Finally, top marks for the bravery required by the two women (and one man!) to act out the effects of the “Chattanooga vibrator” to such effect in front of a packed house!

| Roz Simpson


In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) is on until Saturday 07 April at the Maidment Theatre. Go to www.atc.co.nz for more information and tickets.