Machinal

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Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 Expressionist American classic Machinal is rarely performed in New York, which is also true of Eugene O’Neill’s 1922 The Hairy Ape and Elmer Rice’s 1923 The Adding Machine, the other two native masterpieces in this genre. For its premiere production, the recently formed New York Theatre Company has chosen to open with this timely drama. While director Amy Marie Seidel (Here Are Blueberries and Seven Deadly Sins) has remained faithful to the original text, she has tampered with the play in other ways.

Machinal which means “mechanical” or “automatic” in French was inspired by the notorious trial of Ruth Snyder who was sent to the electric chair in January 1928 for the murder of her husband. Treadwell who was a newspaper reporter attended the trial but did not file articles about it. However, she wrote her play in order to explain why a woman would commit a murder. According to professor and editor Judith E. Barlow’s introduction to the 1993 Royal National Theatre/Nick Hern Books edition of the drama, Expressionist plays make use of “flat characters, repetitive dialogue and action, numerous short scenes, harsh audio effects, confusion of inner and outer reality.”

Machinal makes use of all of these Expressionistic techniques. However, the current production has added tap dancing, practical foley and heightened movement created by choreographer Hilligoss in all of the scenes which both drowns out much of the dialogue and becomes very distracting. Obviously it is meant to emphasize the mechanical aspects of modern life but it also works as a sledge hammer repeatedly hitting the audience over the head with what is perfectly clear in the text itself. It is as though the director and choreographer do not trust the audience to get the message of the play.

Performed in nine short scenes, Machinal follows the adult life of the Young Woman (later revealed to be Helen Jones) in various settings: her work as a stenographer at George Jones Company, at home with her mother who she supports, and at play in a nightclub. She is both bored by her life and constricted by the rules women must live under. Her mother’s upbringing has previously been very confining, not allowing her to date while she was growing up.

She is offered marriage by her boss, the vice president of George Jones Company, but although she can’t bear to be touched by him she consents to be his wife. On her honeymoon in a seaside hotel she realizes what a mistake she has made. When she has a child with him, she discovers in the hospital that she can’t bear to see the baby. When the child is old enough, she starts going out to nightclubs with former office colleagues. There she meets a cowboy visiting from the West who becomes her lover, a representative of the freedom she so desperately desires. As a result she decides to free herself from her entangling responsibilities.

Expressionism looks easy but is very hard to direct. Unfortunately, aside from the added sound effects and tap dancing, Seidel has allowed the actors to use a very unemotional style which only flattens the play even more. Katherine Winter as the Young Woman seems traumatized throughout the play which would work if the other characters around her demonstrated the emotions that she can’t feel but that is not the case. Sam Im as her boss and later her husband, Shelley Mitchell as her mother, and Soph Metcalf as her western lover all underplay their roles which vitiates their parts as villains in the system against her.

As the play in both style and dialogue is a product of its 1928 time period, the gender changes of several characters are not believable for this time period. The tap dancing of Veronica Simpson and Michael Verre is remarkable but in this context less would be more. Though the themes of women’s enslavement due to societal pressures are important subject matter, the production hammers home its message repeatedly without allowing the audience to arrive at it themselves. Many modern women probably still feel the way the heroine does, but the production overlays its themes with too much noise and distraction.

The design elements are also problematic. The scenic design by Rochele Mac is made up of six desks that are constantly moved around and disguised for each scene as also cocktail tables, beds, etc. It not only adds to the running time but each scene looks very similar to the last although they are each supposed to depict a different stratum of society (business, medical, legal, domestic, etc). The costumes by Hahnji Jang are predominantly grey which are just a little too symbolic of the colorless world that the Young Woman lives in. Colleen Doherty’s lighting is straight out of film noir but that is not the vibe the play offers. The sound design by Brittany Harris is fine with the practical foley (typewriters, hammers, drums, buzzers, etc.) but allows the tap dancing to drown out the play in many instances.

Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal is a very important American play, but the New York Theatre Company’s revival is more of a director’s project than a revelatory revival. While all the elements here are unified, the very concept gets in the way of the play’s message. Michael Greif’s 1990 Public Theater production remains the modern standard for revivals of this play.

Machinal (extended through July 13, 2025)

New York Theatre Company

New York City Center Stage II, 131 W. 55^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.nycitycenter.org/pdps/2024-2025/machinal/

http://www.machinaltheplay.com

Running time: two hours and ten minutes including one intermission