In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)

Act I

First Scene

Mrs. Givings turns on her electric lamp.

She shows it to her baby.

MRS. GIVINGS

Look baby, it’s light! No candle, no rusty tool to snuff it out, but light, pure light, straight from man’s imagination into our living room. On, off, on, off, on—

She turns it off and on.

Dr. Givings enters the living room.

He walks through the space toward the operating theater without saying hello to his wife.

She watches him. After he exits:

MRS. GIVINGS

Hello.

Dr. Givings reenters the living room from the operating theater.

DR. GIVINGS

Sorry. Hello, darling.

He exits again to his office.

In the operating theater, Annie changes the sheets on the examining table.

MRS. GIVINGS

(To Dr. Givings) Hello!

(To the baby) We’ll find a nice nurse for you, won’t we? A nice wet nurse with lots of healthy milk. Your father put an advertisement in the paper and we’ll get lots of replies today. My milk is not filling you up, is it? Are you less fat today, darling? Are your cheeks less fat?

She is near tears. She recovers.

MRS. GIVINGS

I’ll find you a nurse who hasn’t a child of her own. Not that I hope to find a nurse with a dead baby for that is tragic nothing is more tragic oh it hurts me here to think it—you in your pram not moving—but I suppose if I am to find a childless nurse with milk to spare, her baby must be dead, and recently dead, oh dear. I don’t like to think of that.

Dr. Givings enters again.

DR. GIVINGS

I have a new patient who might ring the doorbell any second. If she arrives, would you please let Annie answer the door.

The doorbell rings.

DR. GIVINGS

Her nerves are terribly raw and it might throw off the entire clinical balance for her to meet you and the baby.

The doorbell rings.

DR. GIVINGS

Please hide.

(Shouting to his midwife)

Annie!

Mrs. Givings hides behind a piano.

Dr. Givings runs out with the pram.

Annie answers the door.

ANNIE

Hello, you must be Mr. and Mrs. Daldry, please come in.

Mr. and Mrs. Daldry enter.

Mrs. Daldry is fragile and ethereal.

Her face is covered by a veil attached to a hat.

She leans heavily on her husband’s arm.

ANNIE

This way, let me show you to the operating theater—

Mrs. Daldry startles.

ANNIE

Well let’s just call it the next room for now, shall we, don’t be nervous, Mrs. Daldry.

Shall I just put your hat here?

Mrs. Daldry shakes her head.

MR. DALDRY

She’s very sensitive to light.

ANNIE

Of course. Right this way.

Dr. Givings enters from the living room and overhears this last remark.

Annie turns off the electric lamp.

She leads them to the office.

DR. GIVINGS

So nice to meet you, Mrs. Daldry, Mr. Daldry. Shall I take your coat?

Mrs. Daldry shakes her head.

MR. DALDRY

She’s very sensitive to cold.

DR. GIVINGS

I see. Well, have a seat. Sensitive to light, sensitive to cold—

A baby’s cry is heard.

MRS. DALDRY

Oh, is there a baby here? I didn’t know there was a new baby.

How wonderful for you.

DR. GIVINGS

Yes. Could you shut the door please Annie?

She does so.

Then Annie sits invisibly in the corner, listening to the conversation.

Dr. Givings sits and takes out his note pad, writing down notes.

Mrs. Givings, meanwhile, in the next room, has heard the baby cry.

She sneaks out and exits to the nursery.

DR. GIVINGS

What other symptoms is your wife suffering from?

MR. DALDRY

I find her weeping at odd moments during the day, muttering about green curtains or some such nonsense.

DR. GIVINGS

Is it nonsense, Mrs. Daldry?

MRS. DALDRY

I suppose it is. The green curtains give me terrible headache. The color. Old ghosts in the dark.

Mr. Daldry gives Dr. Givings a pointed look.

DR. GIVINGS

Tell me more about the curtains, would you?

MRS. DALDRY

The house where I grew up my mother would wash the curtains every week, she beat them with a stick, and there were no ghosts in them. There was a beautiful view of a grape arbor and when the curtains were cleaned you could see right through to the grapes, you could almost watch them growing, they got so plump in the autumn. My mother would make loads of jam—my mother was not a nervous or excitable woman. It was jam, it was laughing, and long walks out of doors. We haven’t a grape arbor here—I am full of digressions these days Dr. Givings—but the point is I haven’t the strength to wash the curtains every week and beat the ghosts out of them. You think I am talking like a madwoman but if you could see the curtains you would see that I really am very logical. They’re horrible.

Mr. Daldry raises his eyebrows at Dr. Givings.

DR. GIVINGS

And you have tried the usual remedies, rest and relaxation?

MRS. DALDRY MR. DALDRY

I do nothing but rest! Yes.

Nothing but rest!

MR. DALDRY

When I met Mrs. Daldry she was seventeen. She was an extraordinary creature. She played the piano. We ate grape jam in the arbor and there I told her I wanted to take care of her and protect her forever, didn’t I.

MRS. DALDRY

Yes.

MR. DALDRY

Now I am afraid there is very little sympathy between us.

MRS. DALDRY

I am breaking his heart—. He likes me to be a certain way. Perhaps if I could play the piano again but my fingers will not work.

MR. DALDRY

No, her fingers do not work. In the living room. Or in any other room, if you take my meaning, Dr. Givings.

MRS. DALDRY

Mr. Daldry please do not embarrass me with such vulgarities. I am shocked and disgusted and I will leave the room now.

She leaves the room.

She stands in the living room, flustered.

She sees the electrical lamp and turns it on and off.

DR.