Roxy’s Downtown newest play tells the story of Dr. Ruth

When David Stone read in a Philadelphia newspaper about a one-woman show about Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the German-born sex therapist who has been a part of the national zeitgeist since the 1980s, two thoughts sprang to his mind.

“The first thing I thought of when I read it was ‘Roxy’s’ and ‘Deb Campbell.’ The venue’s perfect and Deb, I knew, would be great,” said Stone, director of “Becoming Dr. Ruth,” opening Friday for a three-weekend run at Roxy’s Downtown.

“I knew we needed a theater that would encourage it enthusiastically and an actress who was brave enough to memorize 90 minutes of dialogue all by herself with no one to talk to,” Stone added.

“Becoming Dr. Ruth,” published in 2014 by playwright Mark St. Germain, shows Westheimer in 1997, cleaning out her Upper West Side apartment that she’s lived in for the past 35 years.

If all the public knows about Westheimer is her thick accent and direct talk about sexual matters, they don’t know half the story, Stone and Campbell said.

“It’s a play about a sex therapist, but it’s a play about a woman who got out of Nazi Germany as a child and survived and got to the United States,” Stone said.

Westheimer lived in four different countries – Germany, Switzerland, Israel and France – before coming to the United States.

“This remarkable little Jewish girl barely escaped with her life,” Campbell said.

She fled the Nazis in the Kindertransport and joined the Haganah in Jerusalem as a sniper.

“She doesn’t talk about specific organizations, but the help that she got along the way. Just a fascinating life,” Campbell said. “I always knew she was a sex therapist, and from her accent I thought she was German, but it sounded a little bit wrong.

“To my ear, she worked hard to get that Americanized,” Campbell added.

Speaking of the accent, the one that just about everyone thinks they can imitate, Stone and Campbell said they purposely toned it down.

“I didn’t want to do a thick German accent,” Stone said. “I didn’t want anyone to think we were imitating her, particularly, for fear of being a ‘Saturday Night Live’ effect. She has kind of a generic European, non-descript (accent in the play). I didn’t want anyone walking away thinking of ‘Hogan’s Heroes.’

“We’re not trying to clone her. We’re trying to tell her story,” he added.

“She really has lived a phenomenal life,” Campbell said. “The telling of it needs to be real.”

Campbell is not trying to look like Dr. Ruth – all of 4-foot-7 – either, both added.

The real Westheimer, now 91, is still a force in the media with more than 40 books on the market – the most recent published in 2018.

Stone said Westheimer has given her approval to the play. Its highest profile production was in 2013, with actress Debra Jo Rupp, best known for “That ‘70s Show” and “Friends,” as the doctor.

The script, Stone says, gives Westheimer a chance to reflect upon leaving her longtime home.

“She talks a great deal about her past, and how important diaries are, and you can’t know much about your future if you don’t know a lot about your past,” he said. “That becomes kind of an undercurrent to the entire play.”

Westheimer led an intriguing life before she became a national celebrity, Stone and Campbell said, and her past is integral to her success in sex therapy.

Campbell quotes the script: “I was sent away from my loving family at the age of 10. I wanted to express myself physically, but I had no hugs, no kisses after that.”

“She has psychoanalyzed herself and realized the reason she took this path was because she needed the physicality of family, of intimacy, because she needed a family,” Campbell said.

Although not a comedy, there are humorous moments, Stone and Campbell said, including re-creations of Westheimer’s call-in radio show.

“There’s not one word of profanity in the play, but there are very frank sexual expressions,” Stone said. “It is a very mature play in the finest expression of the word ‘mature.’”

“Becoming Dr. Ruth” is a return to the stage for Campbell, a Wichita theater veteran who has mostly directed for the past 16 years. Among the shows she directed was “The Santaland Diaries” at Roxy’s, a one-man show starring Stone.

This is Campbell’s first one-woman show, and she said she was apprehensive about the challenge.

“My husband and my cats are really tired of hearing this,” Campbell said with a laugh.

“It’s 90 minutes of dialogue, but I know she could pull it off, and indeed she is,” Stone added.

‘BECOMING DR. RUTH’

When: Jan. 10-26; 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays and 6 p.m. Sundays

Where: Roxy’s Downtown, 412 ½ E. Douglas

Tickets: $30 and $25, by calling 316-265-4400

More information: http://www.roxysdowntown.com/