Lezbehonest.

the ideas underpinning the play, about the fundamental lack of sympathy between men and women of the period, and the dubious scientific theories that sometimes reinforced women’s subjugation, are serious. “In the Next Room” illuminates with a light touch — a soft, flickering light rather than a moralizing glare — how much control men had over women’s lives, bodies and thoughts, even their most intimate sensations.

…the play’s slight excesses can easily be forgiven, especially since women’s experience seems to have evaporated almost entirely from movie screens as a subject worthy of illumination through entertainment. (How apt that Meg Ryan, famed for simulating an orgasm on screen in a more fruitful era for Hollywood actresses, was spotted at a preview.) “In the Next Room” is a true novelty: a sex comedy designed not for sniggering teenage boys — or grown men who wish they were still sniggering teenage boys — but for adults with open hearts and minds.