explains, One physician quoted in the book [The Technology of the Orgasm] argued that at least three-fourths of women had ailments that could be cured by the vibrator. Which is kind of stunning. The economy for vibrators, even then, was vast; I mean, it was a million-dollar enterprise. The play then moved to Sydney, Australia and premiered for the Sydney Theatre Company with Jacqueline McKenzie in the title role. The production was directed by Pamela Rabe. Themes and style In September 2006, she received a MacArthur Fellowship. The announcement of that award stated: "Sarah Ruhl, 32, playwright, New York City. Playwright creating vivid and adventurous theatrical works that poignantly juxtapose the mundane aspects of daily life with mythic themes of love and war." John Lahr, in The New Yorker, wrote of Ruhl: But if Ruhl's demeanor is unassuming, her plays are bold. Her nonlinear form of realism—full of astonishments, surprises, and mysteries—is low on exposition and psychology. "I try to interpret how people subjectively experience life," she has said. "Everyone has a great, horrible opera inside him. I feel that my plays, in a way, are very old-fashioned. They're pre-Freudian in the sense that the Greeks and Shakespeare worked with similar assumptions. Catharsis isn't a wound being excavated from childhood." In a discussion with Paula Vogel for BOMB Magazine, Ruhl described the psychology of her plays as "putting things up against Freud ... it's a more medieval sensibility of the humors, melancholia, black bile, and transformation." Rather than "connect the dots psychologically in a linear way," Ruhl prefers to create emotional psychological states through transformation of the performance space. Personal life In 2005, Ruhl married child psychiatrist Tony Charuvastra. He taught a course at NYU on marriage and divorce and sometimes included In the Next Room on his syllabus. Ruhl and Charuvastra have three children: Anna and twins William and Hope. Awards, nominations and honors Ruhl was awarded the Residency 1 program by the Signature Theatre Company in 2019. This involves "a year-long intensive, exploration of a writer's body of work." In 2006, Ruhl received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship with a cash award of $500,000. Ruhl commented: "...the money is truly astounding. The whole thing really does leave one speechless." Ruhl has been awarded the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award for 2016; the awardee is given a cash award of $200,000. The Steinberg committee said, in part: "Her work sparks conversation