Machinal: Story of a Shocker

Without noticing the program's hint that Machinal is "based on the true story of the first woman to be electrocuted in the state of New York," the production can emerge solely as the external projection of a mind growing progressively more detached from reality. The leap that Machinal fails to translate throughout the play is that this insane mind belongs to the young woman eventually executed, for the play misses a coherent plot and can be misinterpreted as social commentary about the alienation of marriage.

A minimalist set contributes to Machinal's ambiguity. The space in the Loeb Ex space is incredibly intimate and close to the audience, yet the careful use of grays and silvers by Glenn Reisch '00 creates a sense of sterility. Hanging from the ceiling are square, metal mobiles with twisted coils, contributing to the sensation that human feeling can only be repressed for so long, just as the metal coils may snap at any time. Throughout the show, the set remains a reconfiguration of five sliver boxes reminiscent of the inside of a combustion engine, a few gray and silver wood planks and a few sparse props. The set reinforces the sense that objects, which often matter so much, are interchangeable and add nothing to humanity's sensual interaction with the universe.

In this sterility, the play opens as dark lighting and odd music fade into a sharply lit, sanitary office. The dialogue is reminiscent of a machine, and the office becomes a highly functional organism. The Filing Clerk (Randy Gomes '02) and the Adding Clerk (Eddie Montoya '02) do a fabulous job of doubling dialogue and repeating each other with static variations. Coupled with the aimless chatter of the Stenographer (Kate Agresta '02) and the Telephone Girl (Thandi Parris '01), an environment of alienation is complete. Everything about this world is artificial, including the commotion when Helen (Erica Rabbit '00) enters the room. The boss has a strange affinity for her and her hands, despite her neurotic and repressed personality.

Here, the first of the play's many ambiguities arises--if one is not a careful observer, one can easily be caught believing the play is a feminist re-creation of a sexual harassment suit, especially as the Boss (Scott Gunn '01) speaks of salary raises. Yet the necessity to undermine the play's ambiguities recedes as the experimental nature of the production takes hold.

A black screen masks a platform upstage and creates an amorphous and cloaked space essential to Machinal's murky insinuations. The lighting, especially because it seems to be lit from the back, creates a silhouette of figures. This space becomes the sordid space of sexual conquest, first with the boss, later as a murky bar and finally in the second act as holding pen for Helen before her execution.

The scenes in the first act follow with an almost anticipated sense of fatality. Agresta, now as Helen's mother, manages to exploit the tension of the production; she must emote, yet her dialogue must appear to be a sardonic condemnation of maternal care. A genuine frustration at the play's emotional detachment resonates with the audience as the mother forces her daughter to eat a potato. However, the play becomes too rapidly melodramatic too early, as the sense that the characters are mocking themselves undermines the growing emotional tension in the play.

Helen leads the audience through her honeymoon. In the sterile hotel, she faces her boss-husband with contrived fear that appears self-consciously artificial and mechanic. Gunn does not negotiate the production's tension as well as Agresta; his dialogue occasionally weaves emotional cadence into a part that ought to be strictly mechanical.

The scenes shift as Helen's life proceeds; the intensity of chaotic readings of two poems at once in between scenes marking time and the growing intensity of Helen's eventual departure into insanity. The maternity scene is almost too experimental and strange; while the doctors are supposed to reflect robots, again, emotion creeps into the scene and destroys the rhythm between the dialogue and actors machine-like movements. Similarly, Helen's descent into the underworld, replete with an affair, does not reflect a change of emotional intensity but continues the linear progression of a dissatisfied woman. No new miseries are brought to the audience's attention; if Helen is supposed to be the outsider with feelings, then she fails, for her development is fatalistic and mechanical.

The second act is more convincingly mechanical, especially the final scenes of the play. Helen eventually kills her husband, as the audience anticipates, and the court scene that ensues is fabulously orchestrated. Gunn demonstrates considerable talent in controlling his body. As robot-husband, he is eerily mechanical and almost reminiscent of an Edward Scissorhands figure. Parris and Agresta, both lawyers, reflect the insensitivity and detachment that the law has for human emotion. The bright lighting illustrates a sense of barrenness, and the media, Montoya and Gomes, again engage in their convincing double dialogue and contribute to the scene's mechanical intention.

Machinal's flirtation with experimental theater achieves its completion in the last scene. The costuming is radical; both Parris and Agresta, executioners, are dressed in metallic-punk-dominatrix suits, and Gunn, the priest, wears a silver robe. The sense that all dialogue is a voice-over creates the impression that the actors are merely odd configurations of marionettes. In this scene, people have fully transformed into machines. Helen's appeals for mercy seem to be almost rays of light bouncing off the darkened stage, for she is the only lit figure. Suddenly, strobe lights destroy the darkness, and the execution is complete.

Strange yet fascinating, Machinal angers, excites and disturbs. One wishes for a more concrete understanding of the stilted dialogue and the odd movements of the actors and actresses, yet the sense of not fully understanding the dynamics of the plot piques the audience's interest. Machinal reinforces the audience's worst suspicions through its oddly lit, sparsely staged and undeveloped emotional tension, for the play suggests that emotions do not matter, and existence is merely a sterilized and mechanical occurrence.