In the Next Room, or the vibrator play

When a play needs to have a parenthetical statement added to its title, that's a red flag. Particularly when the addition is "or the vibrator play." It's a sign that the creative team does not have full faith in their work's potential to bring in crowds on merit alone. It’s the ‘when in doubt, ‘give 'em shock value’ philosophy.

The problem with adding this subtitle to In the Next Room is that it doesn't fit the tone of the piece. This jocular addition would better fit the style of a show like Avenue Q or [title of show]. This play by Sarah Ruhl has some jokes, yes; good ones, at that. But at its heart, it is a drama about a historical turning point in the sexual education of adults.

Michael Cerveris plays Dr. Givings, a physician who treats women (and sometimes men) with "hysteria" and anxiety with his “paroxysm” tool, which will in the future be referred to as a vibrator. His wife, played by Laura Benanti, is inquisitive about her husband’s medical treatments, which go on in the room adjacent to the couple's living room (hence In the Next Room). But her husband is annoyingly rigid about what he divulges about his practices and thus shelters Mrs. Givings.

reasons to be pretty

At a time in our culture when the man-boy is king at the box office, it seems to be the hip thing to discover what makes a man like this and what does it take for him to shake the first part of that moniker. reasons to be pretty is Neil LaBute's take on the man boy, and how to smack the child right out of him (perhaps literally).

The student rush policy for reasons to be pretty states that the tickets go on sale two hours prior to the performance. I arrived at the Lyceum Theatre at 5 p.m., book in hand, ready to wait an hour for tickets to be released (hoping I'd be permitted to wait in the lobby instead of under the threatening clouds). I went to the ticket window to check that there were rush tickets available for the performance and the attendant surprisingly initiated the transaction - an hour early. That's not the policy, but I'm certainly not going to complain. I was in and out, $26.50 third row balcony seat in hand. That's the third tier in the Lyceum, which is so high and steep that it makes my palms sweat. The seats weren't bad, but for a play that's been playing to 42 percent attendance for the past three weeks, I'd have thought rush seats would have been closer. However, the producers seem quite discount friendly; in addition to the student rush policy, there are show promoters around Times Square offering $35-ticket coupons to the production.