Originally published November 18, 2008 at 12:00 AM | Page modified November 19, 2008 at 12:43 PM
Comments (0)
E-mail article
Print view
Theater review | New company pounds out a strong start with "Adding Machine"
Theater review by Misha Berson: New Century Theatre Company, a new Seattle-based professional troupe, stages "The Adding Machine" as its first production, a vigorous, strongly performed version of a 1923 drama about the Machine Age.
Seattle Times theater critic
"The Adding Machine"
By Elmer Rice,plays Thursdays-Sundays through Dec. 13, New Century Theatre Company
at ACT Theatre,
700 Union St., Seattle; $20-$25 (206-292-7676 or www.acttheatre.org).
Theater Review |
For its first production, Seattle's New Century Theatre Company does not take the easy way out.
Instead, this actor-initiated, professional ensemble has given us a gutsy, go-for-it staging of an 85-year-old play that still challenges theater artists and audiences.
New Century's vigorous, full-bodied take on Elmer Rice's "The Adding Machine," guided by intrepid director John Langs, is part museum-quality 1920s expressionism, part contemporary whiz-bang acting and effects, but all gung-ho spirit.
On first look, this rendition of the classic parable about an insignificant cog in the grinding wheel of commerce — purposefully named Mr. Zero — can seem accomplished but almost textbook academic in its studied effects.
But the production stays with you. And if the highly stylized look, bravado acting, and the untidy, aggressive provocations of Rice's imaginatively ungainly script keep dogging you later, that's exactly as it should be.
"The Adding Machine" begins with a long, remarkable monologue, a kind of dystopian version of Molly Bloom's soliloquy in James Joyce's "Ulysses," spoken in one rushing acidic breath by Amy Thone, whose bitterly unfulfilled Mrs. Zero is a marvel of righteous toxicity.
The drama continues with Mr. Zero's workday as one of many lowly department-store accountants, in a smartly choreographed chorus of number-crunching — interspersed with the interior sexual and revenge fantasies of shlubby Zero (the excellently clueless Paul Morgan Stetler) and his haggard co-worker Daisy (Jennifer Lee Taylor).
Thereby follows, in the same starkly unified décor of blacks and grays, Mr. Zero's abrupt persecution by automation (the adding machine replaces the guy with the pencil), a desultory party in his home (with a parlor full of bigoted drones just like him and the Mrs.), and a Kafka-esque arrest and murder trial.
But then Rice throws a monkey wrench in the mechanism. He ironically lifts his vacant, oppressed Everyman into the Elysian fields (in Greek mythology, the resting place of heroes).
There this dubious candidate for heavenly redemption encounters the liberated, lovelier Daisy and gets a stern lesson from a guilt-ridden fellow traveler, Shrdlu (a pun on a nonsense phrase from the days of Linotype printing, and played by Darragh Kennan, with mesmerizing, otherworldly intensity).
Basically, the myopic antihero Zero gets a chance at a happy afterlife. Which he screws up royally — making him complicit in his fate, not just a victim of it.
It's a bizarre turn of events, as is the Buddhism-tinged finale of "The Adding Machine." And when you consider that this strange, fascinating play debuted on a 1920s Broadway dominated by glittering revue-style musicals like "The Ziegfeld Follies," it's astonishing.
Rice was a lawyer by trade. And his stage expressionism was not entirely without precedent. By 1923, young Eugene O'Neill was shaking up the American theater with his restless experimentation. In Germany, an epic theater revolution was taking shape. And there was a corresponding expressionism movement in European film, as in Robert Wiene's "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari."
It's not surprising that "The Adding Machine," which has had many revivals across the decades, is in vogue again during today's high-tech revolution, which has displaced plenty of workers, too. (A well-received new musical based on the play had a recent run Off Broadway.)
New Century has marshaled considerable resources to enrich its own version: a cast of more than a dozen able actors, an eerily percussive score by sound designer Rob Witmer, tone-true expressionistic lighting (by Geoff Korff) and sets (by Jennifer Zeyl).
It all adds up to a lengthy one-act that's confident in its theatricality, but not simplistic in its impact. And it is a strong start for a promising new company, of laudable artistic rigor.
Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
E-mail article
Print view Share:
Digg
Newsvine
![]()
Classical holiday music on KING-FM
Everett Symphony may cancel rest of season after holiday shows
Giant Magnet, which presents children's festival, taps founder as interim director
Preview: Renaissance Singers usher in season with 'Christmas in Cambridge'
SuttonBeresCuller: Big thinkers turn their attention to smaller-scale artworks

New Beginnings Christian Fellowship
Coming in this Sunday's Pacific Northwest Magazine: Pastor Braxton's mission is to preach a message that appeals to everyone.
nwautos
Local riders say they've seen a surge in scooter interest in recent years, mostly from people wanting another commuting option. Seattle now ranks as o...
Post a comment
nwjobs
Post a comment
Michelle Goodman blogs about work/life balance.
Do you suffer from "sitting disease"?
Post a comment
- Home break-in ends in shootings, Everett police say
- Steve Kelley | Next Seahawks GM should be Mike Holmgren
- Mariners Blog | Jose Lopez appears to be on his way out
- Illegal workers quietly let go
- Amazon, Wal-Mart escalate Web price war
- As glam as he wants to be: Adam Lambert's real debut
- Sprouts, raw fish on attorney's 'do not eat' list
- Bellevue Blog | Bellevue residents blast new bikini espresso stand
- Big demand, grim outlook for state Basic Health Plan
- Husky Men's Basketball Blog | An interview with Enes Kanter's coach
- Bellevue residents blast new bikini espresso stand
254 - Jose Lopez appears to be on his way out
245 - Big demand, grim outlook for state Basic Health Plan
206 - Next Seahawks GM should be Mike Holmgren
155 - Washington State coach Paul Wulff says he's excited about Cougars' future
139 - Hate crimes against gays, religious groups up, FBI says
91 - Man shoots self at Westlake Center
83 - Some fans at Fort Bragg see themselves in Sarah Palin
82 - Teen pimp found guilty of human trafficking
66 - Portland cafe's specialty: medical-marijuana tokes
49
- Sprouts, raw fish on attorney's 'do not eat' list
- Tattoos at Mill Creek church pierce skin, soul
- Food-safety lawyer's wish: Put me out of business
- Illegal workers quietly let go
- Architects, chefs find 'kid' within to build Gingerbread Village
- Nicole Brodeur | Homeless woman bent on giving
- Portland cafe's specialty: medical-marijuana tokes
- Big demand, grim outlook for state Basic Health Plan
- Hutch gets $10M from Bezos family for immunotherapy research
- Rediscovering Moab, 'the most beautiful place on Earth'








