The second scene unfolds later, and it reveals two of those women in a moment of gleeful discovery, sisterly solidarity, and female empowerment. A doctor’s wife, Catherine Givings (Anne Gottlieb), and one of the doctor’s patients, Sabrina Daldry (Marianna Bassham), are sitting next to each other on an examining table, and they are laughing so hard it seems their sides will burst. You see, they have just discovered that they don’t need the doctor — or any other man — to use the device to administer a strangely pleasurable “electrical therapy’’ to themselves.
What do these women need men for? Well, that’s an interesting question, one of several that hang over this production as Edmiston expertly finesses Ruhl’s tricky balance of shadow and light.
There are laughs here, yes, and more than a little moaning and writhing, but theatergoers who assume that they’re in for an “I’ll have what she’s having’’ snicker-fest will find something richer, more layered, and more surprising in that next room.
Less surprising but still heartening are the virtuosic performances by Gottlieb and Bassham, who provide the backbone to a strong ensemble. Gottlieb brings all her protean skill to the character of Catherine Givings, filling out her emotional and psychological palette with shades of restlessness, longing, obliviousness, defiance, and insecurity.
Catherine is a woman who is chafing under the confines of what seems to be a passionless marriage to Dr. Givings (Derry Woodhouse) but also under the gender-based strictures of the era, and Gottlieb requires only the slightest flicker of her marvelously expressive face to signal which is which at any given time. As is often the case with this actress, it is a performance that is subtle and forceful at once.
