The great irony of Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 exercise in expressionist theater is that it even as it diligently pursues a thematic agenda that aggressively and persistent critiques the mechanization of modern society, it operates itself more like an emotionless mechanism than a typical dramatic presentation intent on exploiting the emotions of an audience. The play is extremely stylized, combing elements of modernism and expressionism which purpose seek to separate emotional investment from intellectual engagement.
From the moment the lights rise on its opening scene situating a business office operating at peak efficiency through the sound of its various machines rather than the work of its human employees, Machinal zips along with the same demonstration of efficiency of dramaturgical process rather than becoming a foundation for showcasing tour de force acting skills. The protagonist does not even get a name until well into the story. The linkage between scenes makes logical sense, but skip through time an event at such a speedy pace that the audience is offered no ability to connect to the emotional core of those events. This is made all the more starkly bizarre as a result of the those events being the sort that naturally produce natural dramatic conflict capable of whipping audiences into emotional frenzies: marriage, birth, adultery and murder all fly right by without any ability to latch onto them as being representative of actual human relationships. Instead, the characters become like the parts of a machine all working independently to do their own specific job while also working in tandem to make the machine as a whole continue to operate.
The irony is almost impossible to miss. The title itself is a French work which translates into English as “mechanical.” In the published version of the play, Treadwell prefaces the action with a section of notes that enlarge and clarify her intent and mission. She writes of her protagonist “the woman is essentially soft, tender, and the life around her is essentially hard, mechanized. Business, home, marriage, having a child, seeking pleasure – all are difficult for her – mechanical, nerve nagging.” Later, in the stage directions which precede the action of “Episode Eight—The Law” Treadwell instructs the production that “The words and movements of all these people except the YOUNG WOMAN are routine—mechanical. Each is going through the motions of his own game.”
That the play’s controlling thematic exploration is a revolt against the machine—a rebellion against the effects of mechanization of everything, including people—is made abundantly clear. And what more subtly brilliant way of underlining this concern than to tell that story of rebellion in a way that perfectly reflects the problem at hand and serves to suggest that it is a problem which has even infected the last bastion of individualism and humanity: the arts.
