Student Performance: Machinal

From November 9 through 11, Reed College Theatre opened Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 play Machinal. The fairly oppressive play occasionally walks the line between horrifying and disturbingly funny but rarely succeeds so well as with Max Costigan’s work on the play’s audio design which opens the play and over two hours expertly creates an overtly terrifying dense industrial ambiance, and a more subtle, distant, emotionless lo-fi. 

With this soundtrack, the stage is thus set for a brooding and dark expressionistic descent into the psyche of a Young Woman (Cassie Minicucci [or Miranda Dobkin depending on the night, as a handful of roles were double cast]) as she tries to endure and escape an emotionless and mechanical life.

Initially, I thought I would grow tired of  Faith Roche’s portrayal of the Husband  – which seemed overdone and distracting – but over the course of the play, the bombastic performance became distinctly powerful and creepy. Roche’s voluble loudspoken style plays beautifully off the terse delivery and subtle physicalization of Minicucci’s Young Woman.

Some of the most powerful moments were created in the interplay between actors and the audience. As the audience descended into unwilling and uncomfortable laughter in the face of the play’s strangely funny brand of horror, Cassie Minicucci sold the powerful pathos of her lead, making the audience’s laughter directly complicit in the suffering of her character.

After giving birth, the Young Woman turns to an affair with the Young Man (Erin Matlock). Despite Matlock’s evident and powerful charisma, her quiet delivery made her scenes difficult to understand.

Machinal is often remembered for its unique use of masked actors. Despite the brimming theoretical potential of a masked chorus both emphasizing the dehumanized world of the play and calling back to classical theater, in practice the masks were bulky and awkward affairs; I cannot think of a single scene in which they improved.

The play’s blocking was often sparse to the point of being stifling, and in several scenes, the actors didn’t move at all. While this style added minimalist realism to the performance, that realism only meant that it was even more jarring when the actors did move — and their movements often felt rehearsed and stiff. There were, however, some bright spots. Early in the play the elegantly simple blocking of a wordless subway scene meshed perfectly with the lighting, staging, and sound design. And the direction often left the actors cramped in tiny corners of the stage, amplifying the claustrophobic energy of the show.Despite being an exploration of the inhumane and mechanical, it is the humanity shining out beneath the masks and in the polished technical design that sells Machinal.