Rice’s 1923 expressionistic classic lampooning automation is prophetic in its dramatization of the struggle of man (and woman!) against machines.
THE ADDING MACHINE: Theater Review
As The Wall Street Journal reports “Jeff Bezos is in early talks to raise $100 billion for a new fund that would buy up manufacturing companies and seek to use AI technology to accelerate their path to automation,” which would likely trigger an avalanche of mass unemployment, and right on cue The Actors’ Gang is reviving Elmer Rice’s all-too-timely The Adding Machine. Rice’s 1923 expressionistic classic lampooning automation is prophetic in its dramatization of the struggle of man (and woman!) against machines.
In this Roaring Twenties satire, the much put upon Mr. Zero (Pierre Adeli) has loyally and punctually worked at the same firm for a quarter of a century as an accountant. On the occasion of his 25th anniversary of slaving away, day after day, for the company, what is his reward? A gold watch? No, it’s to be rather callously notified by his longtime, smugly blithe Boss (Chad Reinhart) that his position is being mechanized by a gizmo that can do the same accounting job as he, only faster, more efficiently and less expensively. Is Mr. Zero being replaced by a computer? Robot? Artificial Intelligence?
No, he’s being rendered redundant by the two-act play’s eponymous adding machine (during the run of the Rice revival the lobby of The Actors’ Gang’s theater is quite cleverly decorated with real-life period adding machines from Stefan Lyon’s collection, while the playbill is festooned with actual antique advertisements for the contraptions). The longtime faithful employee doesn’t, shall we say (in order to avoid plot spoilers), handle the news too well and takes some direct action. His propaganda of the deed leads directly to the second act, which transpires after Mr. Zero expires in the great beyond.
Pierre Adeli, left, and Mariana Jaccazio. (Bob Turton Photography) In the meantime, before we get there, in Act I, Mr. Zero exemplifies Henry David Thoreau’s existential observation that “the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.” Mr. Zero’s homelife is no better than his existence in the office as a cog in the corporate wheel. His shrewish wife Mrs. Zero (Zoe Molina, who also created the show’s original poster art) relentlessly, ruthlessly henpecks her hapless husband. In doing so, I found her to be intentionally hilarious with the show’s standout performance, although others may regard her performance as playing into gender tropes. In any case, it’s no wonder that Mr. Zero’s life explodes with an act of rather noisy desperation.
(Believe it or not, comedienne Phyllis Diller actually played Mrs. Zero opposite Irish thesp Milo O’Shea in a 1969 film adaptation of The Adding Machine, wherein Charlie Chaplin shares screenwriting credits. His son, Sydney Chaplin, played Lt. Charles. Can you imagine Diller as the disgruntled wife? “O death, where is they Fang?”)
Sexual politics are an important part of The Adding Machine, which includes a crafty scene regarding sex in a cemetery that must have been pretty risqué risky business back in 1923. While still employed, Mr. Zero worked at a desk opposite from or adjoining his fellow accountant, the demure Daisy Devore (Mariana Jaccazio, in multiple roles), with who he has a relationship that’s frosty at best. Like her co-worker Mr. Zero, Daisy has a similar violent response to the news that she’s being replaced by the titular thingamajig. This leads to their meeting up in the afterlife, where they warm up to one another, transcending their earthy reserved selves, going from frosty to frothy.
Zoe Molina, left, and Pierre Adeli. (Bob Turton Photography) The onstage imagining of the pastoral, ethereal Elysian Fields conjures up what Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” calls “Elysium” in the Choral of his immortal 9th Symphony, lyrics by poet Friedrich Schiller (not to be confused with Diller). Kudos to set designer Chris Bell, lighting designer Bosco Flanagan, sound and music design by David Robbins, with projection illustrations by Patrick O’Connor and production and projection design by Cihan Sahin, for giving us mere mortals a sense of what the hereafter will be like.
After the play’s premiere at the afterparty, Sahin told me that the Gang’s rendition of Rice’s century-old gem is almost word for word. However, as the production’s director, Sahin told me that he added the recurring references to the Greek mythological character Sisyphus (Kirk Palmer). Quite a good touch, I may add.
As a longtime aficionado of The Actors’ Gang, led by undaunted Artistic Director Tim Robbins’ who attended the opening, I’ve noticed that the “Gang-sters” generally present either original works developed inhouse, or revivals of radical masterworks, such as the 2022 mounting of Alfred Jarry’s jarring 1896 Ubu Roi. In either case, the Gang’s productions tend to have an irreverent anarchic sensibility that’s anti-capitalist but not party line per se. Their style is heavily influenced by commedia dell’arte (yes, this Adding Machine does indeed have its fair share of masks) and the leftwing Italian playwright Dario Fo, playwright of Accidental Death of an Anarchist, which the Gang produced in 2019. The other Gang revival that The Adding Machine made me think of most was its 2008 production of Irwin Shaw’s 1936 antiwar agitprop play Bury the Dead, because both shows deal with the theme of life beyond the grave.
Megan Stogne, Brent Hinkley, Mariana Jaccazio, and Chad Reinhart. (Bob Turton Photography) Rice emerged at a time of theatrical ferment in the 1920s, when bards such as John Howard Lawson and Eugene O’Neill were rocking the status quo on the boards, often with an expressionist panache. The Adding Machine’s sensibility put me in mind most of O’Neill’s 1922 The Hairy Ape. According to his autobiography, Rice was a socialist, while Lawson went on to become the reputed leader of the Communist Party’s Hollywood branch. As dramatized in Warren Beatty’s 1981 Reds, O’Neill (depicted by Jack Nicholson) was exposed to the leftwing milieu.
The Adding Machine is, in my opinion, the Actors’ Gang’s best play in years, but to go see it I suggest that you don’t rely on your car’s GPS. So, as we are plunged by billionaire Bezos and company into the brave new world of AI, robots, cyberspace, et al, Rice’s luddite vision in The Adding Machine all adds up.
The Actors’ Gang’s The Adding Machine is being performed at 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays and Saturdays and at 2:00 p.m. on Sundays March 29 and April 12, through April 18 at The Actors’ Gang Theater, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232. For info and tickets: (310) 838-4264; Actors' Gang.
