Machinal

There's good news and bad news about CSU's production of "Machinal". It's good news that CSU is bringing thought provoking theater like The Cripple of Inishmaan and Machinal to Columbus. And it's good news that Mandi Kerr's performance as a borderline schizophrenic is my nominee for the performance of the year on a Columbus stage.

The bad news is that there's no borderline schizophrenic in Machinal.

Sophie Treadwell's play is about a young woman who is trapped in a 1920s New York world in which most women have accepted their roles as wife and mother with no other ambitions. The young woman, who's name is Helen Jones (the play's notes don't give anyone a name to reinforce the idea that we're all just machines), marries her boss because he's the only one who asked her and then consents to sex and a baby because it's just one more step down the slope. She then takes a lover who, in Neil Young's words, is "bound for moving on"; in other words is free of society's rules. Eventually, her need to be free leads her to kill her husband and be executed for murder.

The problem here is that in the beginning of the show, Ms Kerr's Helen appears to be so fragile that she might come apart at any moment and even threatens her mother. One wonders what her boss sees in this nervous, tight hair bun of a girl. She only becomes more unwound as she has the baby and begins talking to herself or to someone unseen and seems suicidal. Then, toward the end of the first act, she shows up in a bar with her hair down picking up a strange man and turning obsessive.

Treadwell's intention was to show how a young woman who had few choices might rebel against the society which persecuted her. She might get along by going along but she might also eventually refuse to submit with disastrous consequences. Ms Kerr's performance was riveting but instead of coming away with a larger understanding of how society molds women (and indeed everyone) into its own image, one comes away dazed. This is also in part because Ms Treadwell ladles on issue after issue from abortion to the death penalty so that one only wants to come up for air.

There's more good news in the staging, directing and casting. Machinal isn't an easy piece to stage and director Dr. Becker found a strong cast and kept the staging tight.