Machinal
Rebecca Hall and Michael Cumpsty in Machinal
“It’s (Machinal's) about how chaotic isolation can be.” Michael Cumpsty plays the HUSBAND
This Saturday I saw Machinal at the Roundabout Theatre, for $20 using HIPTIX. I had never read this play in college, but I remember hearing about it as a historical must-read. Before going, I did a little research: Machinal
* Written by Sophie Treadwell and premiered on B’way in 1928
* Inspired by the real life case of convicted Ruth Synder who killed her husband
* This is the second time it’s ever been performed on B’way
* Considered to be Expressionist theatre
The play: How daring of the Roundabout to produce such an avant-garde piece of theatre on Broadway. Hats off to them! This highly stylized work did not feel anachronistic. What’s interesting is I feel like the play had to walk a fine line. The main character played by Rebecca Hall is named Helen. She is the murderer/ the everywoman who could have lived in two different worlds: The VICTIM, where all men and machines are evil or The DEMON, where everyone else besides her is a victim. I believe that Lyndsey Turner, the director, does an amazing job of guiding the audience through Helen’s chaotic world in search of her own human freedom.
I was really struck by how modern the language sounded even though it was written almost 90 years ago. The topics brought up in the play are so relevant as well: women in the workplace, expectations of childbirth, the justice system and the media. These may sound like broad sweeping brushstrokes of society, but the play is full of the mundane: a panic attack on the subway, washing the dishes, a salesman wanting a Swiss watch. As a modern day 20 something, all of these things resonate with me.
For a straight show on Broadway, it has a huge ensemble cast of 18 people. That’s wonderful, more jobs for actors! Also it has a range of generations, maybe not as diverse as it could be, but definitely taking baby steps towards the idea. Rebecca Hall, is plain but as she should be. She is sweet, sincere, confused and completely relatable as the every woman. I think what makes the play so jarring is that everyone is trying to do their best within the confounds of the machine. No one knows better than the system of order they were born into, but when you start to question your unhappiness, like Helen, she dreams of rest.
I was particularly impressed by the set design: a creatively structured box, that rotates clockwise from scene to scene, as a different place. For example one side was a subway station, the next was office, jumping to a hospital room and it was seamlessly done. Magic.
Later that Saturday evening, I took advantage of New York’s culture scene and went to the Brooklyn Museum's free first Saturday of the Month. Highly recommend it! The museum is beautiful and is manageably sized. What linked the play to the museum was an exhibit in the feminist wing by a visiting artist named, Wangechi Mutu. She was born in Nairobi, Kenya, but is now based in Brooklyn. Her work combines found materials, magazine cut-outs, painting and photography. She speaks out about gender, race, war, colonization, exoticization of the black female body. At the exhibit, her collage depicted female figures that were part human, animal, plant, and machine, in fantastical landscapes. These creations reminded me of Machinal because they created a mood that was unnerving, shocking and identifiable with a piece of myself within in each work.
Wangechi Mutu (Kenyan, b. 1972). Misguided Little Unforgivable Hierarchies
Links:
Roundabout Hiptix: http://www.roundabouttheatre.org/Shows-Events/HipTix.aspx
Brooklyn Museum: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/visit/first_saturdays.php
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