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<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">‘</SPAN></B><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">In the Next Room, or
the Vibrator Play’ is a quirky coming of age comedy<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns
= "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN></B></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></B></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Bob
Abelman<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">News-Herald,
Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times,<o:p></o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The
Morning Journal, Geauga Times Courier<o:p></o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Member,
American Theatre Critics Association <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">This
review will appear in the <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">News-Herald
</I></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">on
4/20/12<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">“In the Next Room, or
the Vibrator Play,” currently on stage at the Cleveland Play House, is about
what you think it’s about.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But
while the title suggests a silly sex farce, insight into the playwright reveals
a more intellectually stimulating form of entertainment.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Sarah Ruhl is among
the most acclaimed and accomplished young playwrights on the contemporary
theater scene and, while far from formulaic or predictable, there are certainly
Ruhl Rules that constitute a signature style in her work.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Most of her plays are
smart, quirky comedies that tend to call attention to taken-for-granted
phenomena and reveal their hidden significance.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In “Dog Play,” for example, a pet gets
us to look at death from a unique perspective. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The Tony and Pulitzer
nominated “In the Next Room” sheds light on </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">the
divide between women's lives and men's perceptions of them by examining the
transformative power of </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">electricity</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">
in the late 19<SUP>th</SUP> century.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">It
</SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">takes
place in a physician’s home office in New York, where Dr. Givings (Jeremiah
Wiggins) specializes in relieving “hysteria” in nervous women with an
application of a new electronic-powered invention to the nether-region to the
point of “paroxysm.”<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The symptom
rather than the true cause of what ails these women—which is Victorian era
neglect from their emotionally and physically distant husbands—is addressed and
resolved in an efficient three-to-five minutes.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Many of Ruhl’s works
feature lost women who, in the course of the play, find themselves through
modern technology.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In “Dead Man’s
Cell Phone,” a young woman so profoundly unassuming that she nearly collapses in
on herself finds a dead man’s cell phone and reinvents herself with each
incoming call.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">In “In the Next
Room,” Dr. Givings’ wife Catherine (Nisi Sturgis) has not yet found her voice
despite the tendency to speak her mind.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Sleep walking through the roles of good wife and nurturing mother, she
and the other lonely and incomplete women in this play (Gail Rastorfer and
Birgit Huppuch) discover their true selves when they discover the non-medicinal
uses of the technology locked away “in the next room.”<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">All of Ruhl’s works
are written with purposeful, crystalline language and vibrant emotionalism, even
when spoken by a </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN"
lang=EN>fish and caper (“Passion Play”) or a stone (“Eurydice”).<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">“In the Next Room” is
no exception.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN"
lang=EN>“Everyone has a great, horrible opera inside him,” she noted in a recent
interview in <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The New Yorker</I> magazine,
and her plays are full of similarly dramatic, bold and stylized expression, and
are longer than they need to be.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN"
lang=EN><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN"
lang=EN>Her plays are also thoroughly engaging, </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">theatrically
adventurous journeys that take unexpected turns.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In this play, this is presented through
a male patient (Zac Hoogendyk) for Dr. Givings, the advances of a randy husband
(Donald Cararier) for Catherine, and an enlightened wet nurse (Rachel Leslie)
for their newborn (Hasbro).<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Director Laura Kepley
handles this and all other aspects of this CPH production with incredible charm
and wit.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>She and her team
understand, appreciate and bring to life with incredible attention to detail
Ruhl’s unique brand of storytelling.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">In particular, Ruhl’s
purposeful placement of a sexually charged theme amidst Victorian era etiquette
is beautifully embellished by David Kay Michelsen’s alluring yet impenetrable
wardrobe and Michael B. Raiford’s plush yet formal scenic design.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The set is layered with
turn-of-the-century trimmings—solid period furniture and glass lamps, decorative
wallpaper and drapes, and meticulous woodwork—and all of it presented in
intimate proximity to the surrounding audience.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Everything on the
stage is interesting, not the least of which is the talented, risk-taking
ensemble of actors.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Their greatest
risk, and that of the entire production team, comes at the end of the play,
during Ruhl’s patented tendency to put a metaphysical twist on the story’s
resolution. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Further detail would
ruin the moment for those who have not yet seen the play, but one could easily
imagine the original title being “The Iceman Cometh” if not already taken.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Suffice it to say that some will
find the scene exhilarating, others will find it extraneous, but no one will
ever look at a snow angel in quite the same way ever
again.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">“In the Next Room, or
the Vibrator Play” </SPAN></I><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">continues
through May 13 in Cleveland Play House’s Second Stage Theatre at
PlayhouseSquare.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For tickets, which
range from $49 to $69, call </SPAN></I><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">216-241-6000 or visit
<A href="http://www.clevelandplayhouse.com/"><FONT
color=#0000ff>www.clevelandplayhouse.com</FONT></A>.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN></I><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></I></P></DIV></BODY></HTML>