"The Adding Machine" by Clevername Theatre at the Hive Collaborative

Clevername Theatre's production of the 1923 play The Adding Machine feels like a sequel of sorts to last year's production of the 1928 play Machinal, or at least a continuation of the theme. Both plays are a little weird and dark, performed in an Expressionist style, are about the mundanity and absurdity of everyday life, and even share some cast and creative team. Where Machinal focused on a woman trapped in societal expectations and the extremes she goes to to escape, The Adding Machine tells the story of a man fired from his boring job of 25 years, also going to extremes to escape, only to find more of the same. Once again, Clevername has taken a hundred-year-old play, performed it in the style it was intended, and made it relevant to today. See it at The Hive Collaborative through June 22.

A man known only as Mr. Zero has worked for 25 years at a store, adding up numbers. As his wife chastises him about repeatedly, he had plans to move up in the company, but is instead doing the same job. One day his boss tells him he's no longer needed because they have a fancy new adding machine that will do his job faster and cheaper (reminiscent of today's fears about AI). He goes home to a cocktail party with friends, all of whom are referred to as numbers, only to be arrested for a crime he committed in reaction to being fired. Thus begins a journey through jail, the courts, and the afterlife, an endless cycle of drudgery. If this play weren't so funny it would be depressing. If it weren't so depressing it would be funny. 

Machinal director Grace Barnstead returns to direct this piece, and once again fully accomplishes the Expressionist, almost absurdist performance style. Everyone in the nine-person cast completely commits to this style, speaking in fun old-timey New York accents. Caulden Parkel is our Mr. Zero, creating a character that is at times sympathetic, at times not, fully inhabiting the character through long silences and long monologues. As Mrs. Zero, Victoria Jones (who starred in Machinal) is a lot of fun to watch, and opens the show with a monologue that must go on for ten minutes, about movies and her dissatisfaction with her marriage, all while performing her bedtime routine, setting the scene for the absurdity to come. Other highlights in the cast include Bruce Abas as the callous boss at the store and the afterlife, Paul Willis, Jr. as a mysterious figure Zero meets on his journey, and Cassie Liberkowski as Zero's work crush. They and the rest of the ensemble (Sarah Haley, Will Vierzba, Daniel Vopava, and Meghan Voight) play multiple characters and help make the scene transitions happen quickly and smoothly.

Mr. Zero (Caulden Parkel) with the adding machine
of all adding machines (photo by Shane Donahue)

If memory serves, this production also reuses the set pieces from Machinal, or at least has designed them in a similar style. Multiple chairs and stools in a rustic mismatched design are put together in different ways to form a bed, table, tombstones, a tree, and more. But the highlight of the set design is a fantastic and huge circular abacus that actually spins, with beads that actually move. Characters are dressed in modern-ish muted clothing, almost like sepia tie-dye; I particularly admired the cocktail party wide-necked full-skirted dresses over tank tops. Lighting and sound design add to the cohesive design that feels entirely appropriate for the story and storytelling style. (Set and prop design by Connor McEvoy, costume design by Genevieve Kafka, lighting design by Grace Barnstead, sound design by Caulden Parkel.)

The world today is a scary place - violence, divisiveness, poverty, war. Maybe doing and seeing plays from a hundred years ago is one way to do deal with it, reminding us that some of these human issues are eternal, and we've been through them before. The Adding Machine speaks to violence, unemployment, difficulties in relationships, dissatisfaction with life. It's an American classic play, well executed by the cast and creative team at Clevername Theatre.