Written in 1927 by journalist Sophie
Treadwell, Machinalˆ—currently in revival on
Broadway via the Roundabout Theater Company—was inspired by a sensational murder case of the era, in which a
young woman and her lover were elecrtric-chair executed for killing her
husband; but the inspiration seems merely a springboard. For whereas real-life
Ruth Snyder appears to have been an unsavory and unhinged sort, quite on her
own, Ms. Treadwell has made the central figure of the play into a universal
symbol for downtrodden women who find themselves manipulated (by the pressures
of society and convention) into lives they would not have preferred or chosen.
Indeed she doesn’t even name her characters in the cast list; our heroine is
merely A Young Woman (Rebecca Hall)
whose dialogue and chaotic thoughts (she is the only one who reveals hem) are
out of sync with the “machine of life” around her and increasingly chaotic. The
other characters, among them “Mother” (Suzanne Bertish), and “A Man” (at first her boss, now soon
self-obsessed and oblivious husband; Michael Cumpsty), “A Young Woman” etc. are down to archetypal
essences who speak in representative clichés, axioms and colloquial idioms. The
surrealistic and entirely intended effect is that of a human machine with a
misaligned gear. Even the “Young Man” (Morgan Spector) who will be her lover and provides some temporary
relief functions predictably.
Where
actors and director are concerned in any production
of this play, there’s a sense in which everybody’s palate is perforce limited
to the effect; their own creative input must necessarily feed the machine or
distort the point of the piece. So all you can do, even at the top of your
game, is deliver the mechanism’s moving, with the understanding that you have
only your main character’s mental pressure cooker for emotive release;
otherwise nuance is achieved in leitmotivic, repetitive rhythm and transparent
technique very much emphasized over artistic expression. Neither creative team,
players nor audience escape being victim to the material.
Fortunately—if
that’s the word—that’s the point, director Lyndsay Turner’s production (imported from the West End replete
with its star, though in spite of some native Brits, the supporting cast are
domestic, in an Actors Equity context) does exactly that and exactly as well as
it should. It makes for a cool evening, with aspects of chill, but that’s its
measure of success.
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