Director Mel Brooks once said that sex is like pizza; even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for sex comedies. It takes a deft touch to balance the humorous with the taboo. Come on too strong and things can get juvenile, but shy away and the jokes suddenly lose their teeth.
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In the Next Room Director: Bronwyn Steinberg |
In the Next Room, written by Sarah Ruhl and put on at the Gladstone Theatre by Same Day Theatre, risks falling into the latter trap. The play is set in the Victorian 1880s and centres around Catherine Givings (Sascha Cole) and her husband (David Whiteley), a doctor running a small practice outside of New York City at the dawn of electricity.
If the setting suggests that the humour will be more wink-wink nudge-nudge than flat out raunch, the premise confirms it. Dr. Givings specializes in treating hysteria, a Victorian-era diagnosis applied to undersexed women who were overly nervous or apprehensive. The play begins with Dr. Givings and his assistant, Annie (Michelle LeBlanc), treating the jittery Sabrina Daldry (Sarah Finn) with a primitive electric vibrator.
The performances through the first act of the play are excellent, but seem to settle for being mildly funny and don’t push many buttons. Finn, in particular, excels at her part. She easily steps up to the plate for moments of loud humour, like when Dr. Givings triggers orgasms as part of her treatment. But smaller touches, like the way her hands shake as she undresses in the doctor’s office for the first time, help make Daldry a character instead of just a mouth used to deliver punch lines.
But the play’s first act suggests a shallowness that many of the performances don’t do much to dispel. Cole makes for a charming lead, but her character, Catherine, is not given much to do but accidentally offend houseguests or worry about hiring a wet nurse, Elizabeth (Dilys Ayafor), because she can’t produce enough milk for her newborn. Whiteley, meanwhile, nails every punch line he’s given, with his stiff, stuffy mannerisms, juxtaposing the ribald material. Still, in the early goings he’s really only there to be oblivious about his patients’ rapturous reactions to his treatments.
While the first act is fluffy, if hilariously so, it sets up an astounding, affecting second half. After breaking into her husband’s medical parlour and using the vibrator, Catherine begins to demand more and more passion in her marriage, something Dr. Givings seems unwilling to provide. At the same time, he begins to treat handsome, worldly painter Leo Irving (Robin Toller), whom Catherine begins to fall for, with an anal vibrator.
Irving, inspired after his treatment, asks to paint Elizabeth, who recently lost a baby of her own during childbirth. Meanwhile, Daldry and Annie begin to develop an attraction for one another.
The laughs continue unabated, but the play suddenly seems to be trying to do more than just make people chuckle. Elizabeth’s speech about how losing her child affected her religion is heartbreaking, and Ayafor’s performance imbues her words with a piercing power. The relationship between Daldry and Annie is fated to end badly, but rather than resort to histrionics, the performances are devastatingly understated.
In perhaps the most engaging part of the play, Catherine and Dr. Givings’ marriage seems to disintegrate onstage. Cole conveys a fierce, escalating frustration with her character’s husband, flirting openly with another man and challenging him at every opportunity. Whiteley keeps Dr. Givings steadfastly removed, and the two actors feed off one another, creating a tense, powerful chemistry. It makes the relationship’s trajectory almost staggeringly real, and ensures a moving, perfect ending.
In the Next Room had the potential to be just another middlebrow sex comedy, coasting by on well-constructed jokes about orgasms and Victorian rigidity. But it ultimately says something wrenching and beautiful about human relationships, thanks in no small part to a fantastic cast.