This past semester, I played Mrs. Daldry in Sarah Ruhl’s dramedy In the Next Room, or, The Vibrator Play. As the name of the show might suggest, this is a play involving vibrators. And, by extension, orgasms.
At first, still fresh from the comparatively sheltered land of high school plays, I was not prepared for this. The most risqué thing I had done on stage at that point was make out with someone – as a puppet. I may have had a lot of central-to-the-plot-but-nonetheless-merely-implied sex in my high school shows, but I had never had the-audience-can-see-you-because-you-are-on-stage sex before. Actually, I still haven’t. But now I can say that I have performed a lot of the-audience-can-see-you orgasms.
When I auditioned for The Vibrator Play, I checked off a box claiming I was comfortable with “simulated climax.” Little did I know of what I was getting myself into. The weeks that followed brimmed with awkward, embarrassing, and stressful moments: ones that occasionally caused me to question why I did not simply draw a chalk circle around myself, label it a “No Moan Zone,” and stay there forever. By the time the show finished (and I had finished onstage multiple times) I was infinitely more comfortable with my fictional orgasms – but much like a reaching a real orgasm, the process of getting to that point involved quite a bit of trial, error, and heavy breathing.
At our first rehearsal, the cast settled down to read through the script. Before we began, however, our director informed us that we were going to have an “Orgasm Workshop” within the coming week – and that in this read-through, we shouldn’t worry about making the written orgasms sound realistic. We should just read what was on the page.
“Oh. Oh oh. Oh,” I said. “Oh oh, oh, oh oh.”
That night, as I lay in bed with my boyfriend, our conversation inevitably turned to The Vibrator Play. I told him about the day’s rehearsal, the mysterious and soon-to-be-had Orgasm Workshop, and how I was nervous to gasp sexually on a doctor’s table under a spotlight.
Always thoughtful and considerate, he asked, “What if… instead of getting you flowers after your show, I got you a vibrator engraved to say ‘congratulations?’”
Side Note: this was not a turn-on.
A few weeks into the rehearsal process, the elusive Orgasm Workshop still hadn’t happened. But eager to work on the paroxysm scenes – which made up about fifty percent of the play – our director asked me to try my hand at a realistic climax.
I did. She was unimpressed.
“Think about where you feel your orgasms,” She suggested. “I feel mine in my calves.”
Finally, the day of the Orgasm Workshop arrived. I had a fever of a hundred degrees, and showed up in my pajamas. A friend of the director was there as well, and informed us that we would be doing an acting exercise called “tremoring” to help us “let go.” A few guttural squeaks later, I was contorted into a strange birthing pose on the floor, feverish and sweating, with a soft-spoken senior boy pressing my feet into the air so that I could feel my thighs twitch. Does this sound weird? It was.
Tragically, the tremoring didn’t provide me with any major revelations about acting or sex. In rehearsal the next week, I tried to writhe as realistically as possible, but the director was still unimpressed. Apparently, my orgasm needed “a bigger climax.”
Days passed; nights passed. I was in bed once again with my boyfriend, but was somewhat… distracted. Because my mandated “character work” was to analyze every involuntary movement my body made when aroused, real-life sex had temporarily become a time to be wildly self-conscious. Why are my hands clawing the bed? Are my toes pointed? Why? What face am I making? Oh God, why am I making this face?
Finally, the next morning, I had a hung-over breakthrough in rehearsal. When I performed my character’s most spirited orgasm, the rest of the cast stopped the scene and applauded. I was so pleased.
Now, months after The Vibrator Play ending, and minutes after noticing that I used the word “orgasm” more times in this article than I probably should’ve, I have come to the conclusion that this show was a genuinely good experience to have had. Yes, it was stressful, and no, I didn’t enjoy having my pseudo-paroxysms critiqued every evening. But it forced me to think a lot about a lot of things – the confidence necessary to “get personal” onstage, my own sex life, and how important it is (for women especially) to be able to talk about sex. The process of being in The Vibrator Play was actually quite empowering. I realized that the only times I have faked an orgasm were for that show, and I would like to keep it that way. After all, if repressed Victorian women could discover the fun of finishing, then we modern-day ladies can shamelessly enjoy the same.
