Hysterical A Short History of the Vibrator Written by Hilary Hadley Wright Directed by Jennifer Goodlander Under St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place (212) 279-4488 Through August 21st Review by Jen Hendricks Once upon a time, yet not really that long ago, female sexuality pretty much fell under the heading, "mental instability." Back in the day, in fact, any one of a number of "womanly symptoms" could score you a heavy-duty morphine prescription, or failing that, a lobotomy. Crying jags, reading, persistent signs of interest in the outside world… just about anything other than naming the baby could get a girl in trouble.

Playwright Hilary Hadley Wright’s Hysterical: A Short History of the Vibrator, gives Fringe Festival attendees a brief and amusing history lesson concerning one of the more surprising inventions of the Modern Age. Following the tea kettle but preceding the vacuum cleaner, vibrators could be found in American households in the very earliest days of the 20th century. Chiefly ordered from home shopping catalogues, the offending item masqueraded in the back pages as a therapeutic method of massage for harried housewives. It was yet another form of love that dare not speak it’s name: self-love. Knowing that there is little need to embellish or embroider the incredible, playwright Hadley Wright lets the outlandish facts of Hysterical speak for themselves, using a broadly-comic and extremely-fictional narrative to carry it forward. (Two "men of science", one a dullard and the other a pervert, bemoaning the time-consuming treatments for long lines of "hysterical" women, create a short cut: you guessed it. A parallel is then drawn between the two men and the dissatisfied and increasingly "demanding" women in their lives, including wives as well as patients.) Hadley-Wright wisely presupposes that she’s playing to enlightened audiences and doesn’t need to spell things out. So, while she overstates her case a bit here and there, she never fully submits to lecturing the audience. The all-women cast, too, is enthusiastic and has fun painting in fairly large and colorful strokes. Director Jennifer Goodlander keeps all the trains running on schedule. Plus, costume designer Heidi Sakuma does well with what had to have been a limited budget. At its decidedly weaker moments, Hysterical definitely bears the hallmarks of an academic exercise, inspired as it was by an actual book (The Technology of the Orgasm by Rachel P. Maines, if you’re taking notes). As a result, while entertaining, Hysterical is rather earnest and unpolished. But, hey, it’s educational and concludes by awarding one lucky audience member with a vibrator. We truly have come a long way.