One of the many surprises in Mark St. Germain‘s biographical play about the U.S.’s most celebrated sex therapists Dr Ruth, is there not that much talk about sex at all. What his play does reveal however is the rather dark and shocking journey that this diminutive German Jewish woman took on the way to her success. Who would have thought that this irrepressible and funny motherly figure was ever once a sniper in the Israeli Underground?
The setting of the play is Dr Ruth’s NY apartment in 1997 a couple of months after the death of her husband Fred Westheimer. They had been married 36 years, but as we are soon to find out, he was her 3rd husband and the love of her life. Dr Ruth is now 79 years old and has decided it is time for another fresh start, and so is in the middle of packing up the apartment as she is moving the very next day.
Seeing the audience, she is keen to tell her life story, albeit is interrupted with phone calls from her family telling her not to move, and the movers who in between confirming their pick up in the morning, are asking Dr Ruth for some very personal advice too.
Dr Ruth had been born Karola Ruth Siegel in Frankfurt and when WW2 broke out, just 10 years old she was dispatched by her mother and grandmother on the Kindertransport with other Jewish children to a home in Switzerland for the duration of the war It was the last time she would ever see any of her family.
After surviving the War 17 year old Karola emigrated to Palestine on her own and became Ruth, and the shortest member of the Haganah where, as well as learning how to handle a rifle, she also lost her virginity too. After Palestine/Israel, Ruth moved to France with husband number one, and when that marriage was over, she moved to the US in 1956 to start working at Planned Parenthood and finding husband number two.
The loss of her entire family and the failure of her first two marriages, plus trying to get a real education whilst holding down a job and being a single parent, naturally took its toll on Ruth. Germain however is determined not to let us dwell on those episodes too long and insists on following them quickly with a joke, which on more than one occasion, seemed a tad inappropriate. Which is a pity as asides from these lapses this is otherwise a very compelling account of her fascinating life.
Then there is the jump from sociologist to sex therapist who unwitting volunteered to give a lecture on human sexuality to a group of NY Broadcasters, which led to her being offered her first Radio Show called Sexually Speaking on WYNY-FM . The year was 1980, and by 1984 when NBC syndicated her show Dr Ruth, became a national celebrity and a household name as the first prominent therapist to talk about sex on the airwaves and on television.
However it was her quick-wit and her irrepressible good humor that made her the much-loved star she became, especially as this self-deprecating woman was the first to laugh at her own mangled accent, and related how her giggle was one described as sounding like a gerbil on heat. And she relates an incident when she was been interviewed at home by Diane Sawyer who preceded to ask her husband Fred if they had a good sex life. Without missing a heartbeat he evidently retorted ‘well the shoemaker’s children didn’t get any shoes!
The remarkably talented Anne O’Sullivan, who is probably a good 6″ taller than Dr Ruth, keeps us totally engaged throughout the 90 minute one-hander play. She perfectly captures both Dr Ruth’s warmth and her incessant eagerness to find happiness, whilst being able to stop us in our tracks when the story touches on Dr Ruth’s darker moments.
O’Sullivan understudied the role during its Off-Broadway run, and now stars in this new production at the Gable Stage at The Biltmore, Coral Gables, Florida, which has been staged by Joseph Adler.
Becoming Dr. Ruth November 25th November through to December 24th http://www.gablestage.org/
