Sarah Ruhl's first Broadway production, "In the Next Room of the vibrator play" touches on just that. I don't know how historically accurate it is, but with the dawn of Edison's lightbulb came a whole slew of inventions and "mod cons" including a treatment for women's "hysteria" via this vibrating tool used to relieve built up tension in the womb.
I thought I would hate this play, but I surpringly liked it. It "touched" on a lot of things including longing to be heard, to be touched and, women's sexuality, all but ignored back then. I felt the tone kind of jumped all over the place from winkwinknudgenudge mugging to some poignant and angry moments to baffoonery and then back to tenderness. Not that this is not all possible in one production, but I felt this play was not certain what it was truly trying to achieve and with what kind of feeling. That being said, the actors were wonderful and the final moment of letting go and giving in was powerful to me.
Spoiler alert (not really, but sorta): The particles of snow that kept dropping on the drawing room and operating theatre sets throughout the play completely spoiled what should have been a surprise of snow falling all over the set in the final scene and being transported outside. Shame that we kind of knew this in advance.
Still, some good...vibrations. (winkwink/nudgenudge)
C. took me and we sat next to 91 year old legend, Arthur Laurents.
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