Katie Lightfoot, Flora Montgomery, Paul Hickey, Tom Hodgkins, Rakie Ayola, Edward Bennett

The Ustinov Studio’s American Season concludes with the third of three UK premieres - In The Next Room or The Vibrator Play by Tony Award-nominated playwright Sarah Ruhl, is directed by the Ustinov Studio’s Artistic Director, Laurence Boswell.

In a spa town in New York in the late 19th century, enthusiasm for the new electric light bulb is spreading through the homes of the well-to-do citizens. Young Dr Givings is obsessed with the marvels of technology and has been working with a handy new device, a strange electric powered box set up in his operating theatre to treat female hysteria. Dr Givings’ first patient emerges from her first session beaming and keen to return for further treatment. But while the good doctor is blithely administering to his patients, his wife, Catherine, a new mother, is left feeling lonely and left out and forced to take matters into her own hands.

Sarah Ruhl’s insightful, entertaining, and poignant masterpiece is a brilliant comedy of manners played out against the backdrop of the revolution of electricity and the many changes that were beginning to happen. It was nominated for three 2010 Tony Awards, including Best New Play.

The cast includes Katie Lightfoot, who appeared at the Theatre Royal Bath in last year’s Henry IV parts 1 & 2, and Flora Montgomery, who starred in The Good Soldier at the Ustinov Studio in the summer of 2010. The rest of the cast includes Paul Hickey, Tom Hodgkins, Rakie Ayola and Edward Bennett.