Valentine’s Day brought two entertainments for consideration this year. The movie Fifty Shades of Grey is getting most of the media attention (I can’t believe I’m writing this, but I’ll see it tonight and post a review tomorrow.) It’s coincidentally interesting that Syracuse Stage chose Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room as a February production, because it shares thematic connections with E.L. James’ literary phenomenon. Both concern the mysteries of female desire.

I saw Ruhl’s previous play, Dead Man’s Cell Phone (2007) during its 2008 run at Playwrights Horizons. Although I was captivated by Mary Louise Parker’s line readings, the piece itself seemed a trifle to me back then. In retrospect, it had a uniquely feminine sensibility that I’m sure Parker tapped into. In the Next Room is superficially a “women’s play” (the female:male orgasm ratio is about 4:1) but it should be discussed as an equal opportunity (and surprisingly sweet) romance. We all want to connect, to be loved; some are more honest about it than others.

The Syracuse Stage program includes an essay by Ruhl that includes the following bullet: “In 1889, the sewing machine became the first home appliance to be electrified, followed in the next year by the fan, the teakettle, the toaster, and the vibrator.” You’re probably familiar with that trivia, and it’s a logical place for Ruhl to jump off from. In the Next Room takes place in “A prosperous spa town outside of New York City, perhaps Saratoga Springs at the dawn of the age of electricity; and after the Civil War; circa 1880s.” The set, designed for the Syracuse production by Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams, is a masterpiece. There are no walls; four doors are prominently featured. The opening and closing of doors becomes a recurring thematic element, and the idea that walls don’t hide as much as we think is made literal by the fact that walls simply don’t exist as part of the set itself.

Christopher Kelly plays Dr. Givings, a self-styled scientist who has invented a device (an immense vibrator – the sound design is a comic dream) to treat “women’s hysteria.” (Later in the play, Givings reveals a gigantic prostate massager and similarly “treats” a male patient for the much more elusive “male hysteria.”) Well-to-do couples engage his assistance to cure what amounts to sexual frigidity. Although largely used to comedic effect, Ruhl doesn’t miss the chance to point out two things: first, the “problem” is relational to begin with (a couple not connecting); and second, the “cure” is far more effective when matched with the attention and concern of an actual person. Technology reveals, and it helps, but it’s not the ultimate solution.

Marianna McClellan is wonderful as Catherine Givings, the doctor’s wife. Hers is the role the play pivots on – the audience needs to stay with her and root for her success in order for it all to hold together. She hooked me from the start. Ruhl adds another complicating element to the scenario: Catherine is unable to nurse her infant. A wet nurse is engaged (Krystel Lucas, radiant), highlighting a different kind of substitutionary “technology.” Catherine overflows with desire and yet is unable to connect with her husband or child.

Ruhl makes very clear that most of what separates us is lack of communication, lack of intimacy. If we can’t talk about what we want or what we need, we dwindle. Most of the time, the information is available (walls hide nothing) but we can’t see the forest for the trees – another beautifully metaphoric echo in MacAdams’ set. The end of the play features a moment of extraordinary beauty – the entirely naked Dr. Givings (note the surname, if you haven’t already) is achingly regarded by his wife as snow becomes crimson petals, gently falling around them. She lays on top of him and they “make angels” together – a pointedly revolutionary sex position for them and for their time – as the lights fade.

My companion refused to clap at the end of the play, and he won’t discuss his reaction. Like the men in Ruhl’s drama, he seems to regard female pleasure as a mystery, extraneous to polite conversation. I’ve seen dozens of pieces about Fifty Shades of Grey over the past few days as well, mostly written by frightened men. It seems self-defeating that we refuse to move beyond a provincial understanding of the forces that compel us, and that’s exactly Ruhl’s point. Let’s talk about it. We must connect.