Idle Muse's In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) amuses, but falls short
Sarah Ruhl examines old-fashioned female "hysteria" and newfangled treatments. Imagine Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" crossed with a sex-positivity workshop and you've got the outlines for Sarah Ruhl's 2009 In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), now in a revival with Idle Muse Theatre Company under Morgan Manasa's direction. Catherine Givings (Kristen Ales…