can now certainly get some satisfaction

The first thing that stood out for me about Thursday night's performance of In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) was a sense of nostalgia. Not because I've ever been diagnosed with hysteria, or suspected love and science couldn't co-exist, but because of the routine I got into in my freshman year of college. Every other week I had to attend a play performance for my Playwriting II course. Some were large scale productions in prominent theaters on Broad Street (Philadelphia). Others took place with minimal sets in a room above a restaurant that sold nothing but crepes (and the crepes were delicious). That year I discovered just how much I enjoyed seeing a play with only a few other people around, with the actors so close they might as well be sitting with you at your dinner table.

In the Next Room really felt like you were in an intimate space. Although the theater was pleasantly crowded - I like to see a full house in support of the arts - there was no sense of grandeur. It suited the content of the play, which focused not so much on the invention of the vibrator, but the period of misunderstanding in the upper classes about love and sexual gratification in the 1800's. The wet nurse, for example, understood more about intercourse than the aristocratic women, who thought of sex merely as a man's need and a means for reproduction.

Big sets, dance numbers, and multiple cast members weren't necessary. The emotion of the play was the important thing, with the humor acting as a relief system. I admit it was pretty uncomfortable to watch women act out an orgasm every couple of minutes surrounded by strangers. It kind of made me wonder what it was like for the first audience to ever watch When Harry Met Sally. It was the jokes, the hilarious expressions on the faces of the actors as the new experiences changed things up for them, that made all the discomfort worth it.

I felt as if the entire audience loosened up their corsets and let the message sink in. Love is a much happier thing if both parties get a little somethin' somethin' out of it (and that includes same sex relationships too!).

CULTURAL EVENT 01