Sydney Theatre Company's first main stage production for 2011 is the Australian premiere of Sarah Ruhl's acclaimed Broadway comedy In The Next Room or the vibrator play. Pamela Rabe directs Jacqueline McKenzie as Catherine Givings, an 1880's woman whose husband Dr Givings (David Roberts) marvels at the effectiveness of a newfangled electric invention he uses to administer remedial treatment to women suffering from ‘hysteria'. The STC production opens at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, on 11 February, running to 27 March 2011, followed by tours to Melbourne, Wollongong, Canberra and Parramatta.
With a sumptuous period setting, the play is based on the fact that doctors in the Victorian era used vibrators to treat ‘hysterical' women. Unable to breastfeed her baby, excluded from her husband's world and feeling desperately lonely, Catherine seeks companionship with two of the patients her husband has been treating with the new device in the adjoining room and begins to discover the truth of what goes on behind the closed door.
Director: Pamela Rabe. Designer: TraCy Grant Lord. Lighting Designer: Hartley T A Kemp. Composer & Sound Designer: Iain Grandage
Cast: Josh McConville, Mandy McElhinney, Jacqueline McKenzie, Marshall Napier, David Roberts, Helen Thomson, Sara Zwangobani
Box Office: (02) 9250 1777. sydneytheatre.com.au
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