“In The Next Room:<br> or the vibrator play”

Acclaimed playwright Sarah Ruhl turned a strange episode of medical history — the use, by doctors, of electric vibrators to treat women for emotional problems – into a play, now on Broadway. Ruhl was interested in “anything to do with the 19th century that you wouldn’t read in the pages of Charlotte Bronte.”

Joan Marcus

Acclaimed playwright Sarah Ruhl turned a strange episode of medical history — the use, by doctors, of electric vibrators to treat women for emotional problems – into a play, now on Broadway. Ruhl was interested in “anything to do with the 19th century that you wouldn’t read in the pages of Charlotte Bronte.”