Well Behaved Women (and Co) Revitalize Urgency for Sexual Health and Freedom

On a Friday night in Capitol Hill, a crowd of eager theater-goers entered through the unassuming front doors of Seattle Open Arts Place to watch the debut of a new theater company. Well Behaved Women and Co were putting on their inaugural production, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play). 

The next two hours were equal parts hilarious and tear-inducing as a cast of seven captured a microcosm of life in Gilded Age Upstate New York. In this world, electricity in the home is a newfangled concept, and, using the power of such new technology, one Dr. Givings (Jacob Wayne) has been treating his patients who suffer from “hysteria” with vibrators. One of Dr. Givings’ patients, Mrs. Daldry (Geena Pietromonaco), is skittish and sensitive to both light and cold when she first enters the waiting room, hiding behind layers of clothing and veils. After her first experience of the “treatment” in the next room, she exits with a glow in her cheeks and a zest for life restored. Dr. Givings decides that daily sessions of the treatment will be best. 

Caity Petterson and Bailey Durnin named their theater company Well Behaved Women and Co in December of 2024, in the weeks following the election. “We were both very angry and both wanting to have a space for stories that highlight the people being attacked, marginalized, etc.,” says Petterson, adding that, “The ‘well behaved’ is obviously ironic.”

Petterson and Durnin have been friends and frequent collaborators since meeting in 2014 at a summer acting camp in their hometown. Ten years later, the duo launched their own theater company together. For their inaugural production as Well Behaved Women and Co, Durnin and Petterson selected their favorite play, Sarah Ruhl’s 2009 masterpiece In the Next Room, which they both first encountered while at acting conservatory at PCPA. Eight years later, re-reading the play in their mid-twenties, Durnin and Petterson found that it rang true in even deeper and at times uncanny ways. As Petterson describes it, “It’s everything. It’s funny and it means something, and it’s expository, and it’s got this historical aspect that really parallels a lot of what’s happening right now.”

Mrs. Daldry gets the treatment: Bailey Durnin, Geena Pietromonaco.

Marcus Baker

In the Next Room is based on the real history of the vibrator, particularly Rachel Maines’ 1998 book The Technology of Orgasm. Electric vibrators were invented by Victorian doctors to treat a host of psychological and physical symptoms which at the time were classified as “hysteria.” These proto-gynecologists believed that by stimulating the vulva and inducing a “paroxysm” (orgasm), the patient would release excess fluid that had been trapped in the womb, and in doing so, release hysterical symptoms.

Essentially, before they were sold for home use beginning in the early 20th century, vibrators were considered medical instruments rather than sex toys. This belief was compounded by the medical industry’s wildly ignorant notion that women could only experience sexual pleasure from penetration, even though the patients using the instruments might have other opinions on the subject. 

Working off of Ruhl’s genius and quick-witted script, Well Behaved Women and Co brought the Victorian era to life at Seattle Open Arts Place with a series of sold-out shows from April 10-13. The group carried out the impressive feat of rehearsing and putting together the show in a mere three weeks. While the play is delightfully silly at times, it uses humor to explore medical and social ignorance of women’s health and sexuality. In the Next Room’s examination of the historic and continued compromisation of women’s rights to equal healthcare has ominous undertones in 2025.

Mr. Irving and Mrs. Givings enjoy some tea: Bjorn Sorensen, Bailey Durnin

Marcus Baker

As a first-time viewer of the play, I raced to write down the onslaught of thoughts going through my brain during the intermission. For my entire life, I have been unconsciously consuming a majority of art that centers on the male gaze and, more specifically, men’s pleasure. Watching this play felt, in contrast, like coming home to myself in the most intimate sense. Something my childhood best friend once said to me rang in my ears: “I’ve learned more about myself from my vibrator than from all the men I’ve been with, combined.” And, frankly, she was onto something with that. 

The way I first discovered myself sexually—what I was capable of, what I wanted, and the eccentricities of my own body—was largely thanks to vibrators. So to see a play about these devices that have provided centuries of people with self-discovery and sexual empowerment was something I didn’t know I needed. Thank you vibrators! Thank you Sarah Ruhl. And thank you Well Behaved Women and Co; keep up the good, well-behaved work.

As for Well Behaved Women and Co’s future projects, Petterson and Durnin are hoping to produce new work from local playwrights. They also plan to do a verbatim theater project centered around consent. This production would be with the goal to open up a more nuanced conversation about what saying no and accepting no really looks and sounds like in practice, particularly within the queer community.

Petterson added, “The goal is fostering a space of love and acceptance and growth and trying to be better people.”