Gyllenhaal at the premiere of 'Nanny McPhee Returns' (Photo: Associated Press)

Updated Aug. 25, 11:30 a.m.

Entertainment Weekly reported last week that Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy have signed on as the leads in the movie Hysteria, an indie comedy about the Victorian-era invention of the vibrator. Hey, that sounds familiar! Kind of like In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play, a Sarah Ruhl-penned story about the Victorian-era invention of the vibrator that just opened at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre. Most announcements about the film have overlooked the connection to Ruhl's Pulitzer-finalist play (it lost to Next to Normal) altogether.

Tracey Becker, one of three producers of the film, said in an email that the film is not based on Ruhl's play. Hysteria "is an original screenplay written by Stephen Dyer and Jonah Lisa Dyer, with a shared 'story by' credit for Howard Gensler," said Becker.

But just because the plots are eerily similar doesn’t mean that the film is a total rip-off of Ruhl. The Victorian-era treatment of women’s cases of hysteria with vibrators is a historical occurrence, so any writer could have been inspired by it. In the Vibrator Play, the female lead is the doctor’s wife, whereas in the film, she is his daughter. Jonathan Pryce and Rupert Everett will co-star.

Folks at Woolly Mammoth found out about the movie the same way many people did, via Twitter. Alli Houseworth, Woolly’s communications and new media manager, says that neither she nor the artistic staff had any information about Ruhl’s connections to the film. However, Houseworth is optimistic about Hysteria, noting that Gyllenhaal is a stage actress and that the announcement could bring attention to their just-opened production. She also thinks it will be a step forward for the portrayal of female sexuality in media, noting her own challenges in marketing a show with the word “vibrator” in the title.

“I bet this movie will make it not such a taboo subject,” says Houseworth.