The advent of a new instrument changes the lives of many in “In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play,” which runs Oct. 28 to Nov. 19 at Synchonicity Theatre.

The play, a 2010 Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize nominee for Best Play, is set in the days of corsets, bustles and horses and buggies. A noted doctor has come up with a vibrator that is designed to treat women for “hysteria” but instead makes them enormously happy.

“Vibrator Play” is directed by Rachel May,  artistic director or Synchronicity, and was written by acclaimed playwright Sarah Ruhl.

“I like her work – she is a smart writer but she has heart,” May says. “She reminds me of Paula Vogel in that she makes you laugh but undercuts it with social commentary. The humor works to get you into it but important things are underneath.”

May also laughs that when she heard about the play, she thought “if the show was half as good as its title, it would be fun to produce.”

For May, “Vibrator Play” is “a love letter to marriage.”

“It traces the journey from a lack of intimacy to intimacy between the doctor and his wife,” May says.

The director had to do extensive research. According to May, the show is based on true events and the advent of the vibrator.

“Women were treated for the disease of ‘hysteria’ up until 1950,” she says.  “What that is now is a healthy woman’s sexual desire.”

“Vibrator Play” has lesbian content with two of the women, Mrs. Daldry (Tiffany Morgan) and Annie (Daryl Fazio), the doctor’s midwife.

“Annie holds her hand when she gets undressed and does a manual treatment,” says May. “Through this interaction they form a relationship and it is the most intimate relationship either has ever had.”

Gay teen, sister at heart of ‘Edith’ at Actor’s Express

Coming off of a rousing success with the musical “Spring Awakening,” Actor’s Express opens the gay-themed “Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them.”  The new play, which runs through Nov. 26, is written by A. Rey Pamatmat and is part of a rolling world premiere at the Express.

According to Freddie Ashley, the artistic director of Actor’s Express who also directs the play, “Edith” is something of a comedy drama with a cast of three. With their mother dead and their father having left them, sixteen-year-old Kenny (Ralph Del Rosario) has to take care of his twelve-year-old sister, Edith (Rose Le Tran), on a farm in middle America.

Kenny has also noticed that he had developed feelings for his best friend, Benji (Tucker Weinmann), who is his study buddy.

The three kids form something of an unlikely family bond, until a threat rises up from the outside world and leads Edith – the youngest – to take matters into her own hands and start firing.

Ashley says he likes the show — in which adult actors play the children — because it is about “all different kinds of family,” and because it has a heart as well as optimism and warmth. Ashley also calls “Edith” emotionally complex and observant about the relationship between the three characters.

Teenagers Kenny and Benji have never felt anything like what they are going through.

“They are completely inexperienced,” says Ashley. “This is the first inkling of sexual awakening for them.”

Edith is okay with the situation, though, and even becomes protective of Benji.

According to Ashley, Edith is a “plucky, self-assured character, one with an active imagination,” who teaches her brother how to stand up for himself while he teaches her to develop more patience.

Top photo: In ‘In the Next Room,’ Mrs. Catherine Givings (Kate Donadio) wonders about the treatments her husband, a doctor, uses to treat female ‘hysteria’ and ultimately learns about her own sexual satisfaction. (Photo by Chris Bartelski / thereasonilove.com)