Friday, January 26, through Sunday, February 4
Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center, 3750 Seventh Avenue, Rock Island IL
A biting period comedy about sexual desire, motherhood, jealousy, and the early days of its parenthetical object, Sarah Ruhl's Tony-nominated In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) runs at Augustana College January 26 through February 4, treating audiences to a work the New York Times called “insightful, fresh, and funny” and “as rich in thought as it is in feeling.”
Set in late 19th-Century America, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) finds Sabrina Daldry and Catherine Givings sexually frustrated with their husbands, and fascinated by an invention doctors are using as a clinical device to treat women for “hysteria.” Sabrina becomes content to enjoy the new machine's “treatments” while enduring the dull affections of her spouse. Catherine, however, wants more, and begins to pursue it after lower-class wet nurse Elizabeth reveals that she may be able to enjoy the same sensations from the machine with her husband. Written by two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and Illinois native Sarah Ruhl, In the the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) was nominated for three 2010 Tony Awards including Best Play, and described by Variety magazine as a “serenely funny” work that “sparkles with wit and invention.”
Augustana's first stage production of 2018 is directed by Jennifer Popple, whose other presentations at the college have included Crimes of the Heart, As You Like It, and Machinal. Melina Herman, Michaela Cushing, and Brinda Murali are respectively cast as Sabrina, Catherine, and Elizabeth, with the rest of the show's ensemble composed of Rose Brown, Tristan Odenkirk, James Wheeler, and Jaryd Whitmore.
In the Next Room (or The Vibrator) will be presented at the Brunner Theatre Center Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 1:30 p.m., tickets are $9-11, and more information and reservations are available by calling (309)794-7306 or visiting Augustana.edu.
