A hysterical comedy about marriage, intimacy, and medicine.
In the Next Room, or the vibrator play is a hysterical comedy about marriage, intimacy, and medicine. In 1880 at the dawn of electricity, Dr. Givings has invented an extraordinary new device to treat "hysteria" in women (and some men): the vibrator. This treatment, administered in his private home office, involves draining "emotional excess" by inducing a paroxysm. In the next room, his young and energetic wife, Catherine, wonders how her husband helps his patients while she tries to tend to their newborn daughter. When a new "hysterical" patient and her husband bring their own complicated relationship and a wet nurse into the doctor's home, the Givings couple must confront the nature of their own marriage and what it truly means to love someone. With a revolving door of amusing characters, In the Next Room is never campy or lurid. This discreetly sensual comedy shares the heartbreak, humor, and humanity in our closest relationships.