Machinal+Critique+-+David+Aziz

David Aziz Farley Richmond Intro to Theatre 26 March 2017 Machinal Critique The play “Machinal” by Sophie Treadwell is a play about a young woman who is driven by love and freedom, that murders her husband in her undying will to try and escape her wretched life. The motive of the play, as stated by Treadwell, is that the characters in the play are meant to be portrayed as any person. The woman is meant to be extremely vague and only be described by her position. All the characters acted in a similar way and behaved only based on their status in the current scene. This way of playwriting makes it very relatable to the common person attending it due to the extreme vagueness of the characters. You can easily place yourself into the same situation as the young woman in the play. This sort of situation often occurs to young women in the workplace, so people in the audience are often very connected to what is going on, on-stage. The play also contains a very eery modern feel to it. The time period the play is actually supposed to take place in is around the early 1900’s according to some research. It feels like it is somehow connected to the present day workplace, even though it is meant to take place such a long time ago. The overall play seems a bit unconventional with only a screen and boxes as a setting, it is hard to picture what is going on during most scenes. According to some research, the play is supposed to contain an element of realism and expressionism which is hard to digest as an inexperienced college student in the audience. The first element of the play that really struck me as odd was the role of the director. The director is the primary person who casted these roles, and I believe did a poor job at casting the characters. I could not stop focusing on the height differences of the all the actors on stage. The mother of the young woman seemed to be almost a foot shorter than the girl which I found very odd. When the mother was attempting to be stern and strict, it did not convey the correct tone and message as it should have if she were taller. The correct way to fix this problem, is to either cast a taller female character to play the role of the mother, or stand the character on one of the boxes to emphasize the authority she had over the girl. The director and production crew did not do a good job of using either of these methods, so there was a clear lack of authority in the mother’s character. Another thing that failed in the directing aspect, is that they did not fulfill the description of the character that well as mentioned by the playwright. The person singing the jazz tunes was supposed to be a black female during this era, since Jazz was a very predominantly black cultural music. The singing of the characters and incorrect casting often distracted me from what was going on during the play itself. The “boss” character also was MUCH taller than anyone else on stage, which seemed very strange. He was towering over the girl constantly and it felt very awkward at times. The casting director and anyone else responsible for this section of the play did not do a very good job at finding the correct people to play in this production. Another problem with the story is that it was extremely unclear when there was a change in scenes or what exactly was even happening in the scenes. During the pregnancy scene, I was extremely confused as to what was exactly happening. It seemed at some points, as if she was just being told she was pregnant, and in other moments of the same scene, it seemed as if she is just about to give birth. Soon after, the doctor comes in saying to bring the baby in. This scene in particular was executed very poorly and there was a failure in conveying a clear story. The minimalist set may have contributed to this, but it was very hard to actually understand what was going on during the play. The director of the play did not execute these basic functions of the play very well and made it very hard to follow along and understand the message of the playwright. The acting of the play itself was one of the most confusing parts of the entire play for me. The actors were constantly dancing as they spoke their lines in a very strange way. They were not dancing with any connection to what they were saying during the play; also, they weren’t dancing with any moves from the early 1900’s. All their dance moves were extremely modern moves that were developed in the past decade. I was more focused on the random movements each character was making instead of the actual words that were coming out of their mouth. These dance moves were very distracting to a lot of the audience members as well. I had spoken to some of the audience at the end of the play and all were in agreement; the random dancing had been very distracting to them as well. I am not sure as to whether this was an idea of the production crew or the playwright themselves but it did not blend well with what message they were attempting to convey. The ensemble on the other hand, did a magnificent job of being supporting members of the message of the play. The ensemble was the real driving members of the play itself and helped actually demonstrate what scene was supposed to be happening during the course of the production. Without the ensemble members, the play would have been extremely confusing and hard to follow along. The ensemble actors also played a vast range of characters and switched in between tones of voice extremely quickly. Their acting level impressed me and their comprehension of all the characters they were playing was quite well done. One of the members of the ensemble spoke much louder than the other people on stage which was slightly distracting. He was the asian male, that was yelling “hot dog” in the beginning of the play. This is an error on the production side because someone should have mentioned to him that his voice was much louder than everyone else’s. Other than the incoherency of script and dancing, the acting was done quite well. The “boss” character genuinely made me feel very uncomfortable when he reached for the girl and touched her. He conveyed the message of the playwright very well to the audience. The girl herself also played her role near perfectly. She was constantly shaking and never looking him in the eyes which gave an element of fear and worry to the entire audience. The final production quality that I found very interesting was the costume choices. All the characters in the play were wearing black shirts and pants and also not wearing any shoes. The time period of the play was not understood if it weren’t for the singing of the jazz. The costumes did not convey any sort of time period of the play which I found interesting. The all black costumes worked well in explaining the overarching message of the play, which was that this problem could happen to anyone. The costume designers did a great job at making the canvas blank, so that the audience may place themselves in the situation of the actors. The one person on stage that had any sort of deviation from the basic black pants and shirt, was the younger woman. She was dressed in a black dress which gave an element of hope to her. She was nonconforming to the basic black attire that all the ensemble wore and it allowed her to stick out more than anyone else. Her dress flowed as she moved around the stage which gave her an element of grace. The materials used in the costumes for each person weren’t strict and many of the actors were wearing different types of clothing. Some of the girl actors were wearing black leggings, while others were wearing black jeans. This mismatch in clothing weakened the idea of uniformity in the play. If all the characters were dressed identically, it would have conveyed a stronger message that all of these characters were mere blank canvasses. If all the actors looked the same, it would limit distraction to clothing. The goal of the costumes in this play should have been to be as discreet and uniform as possible to limit all distractions to clothing and only allow the audience to focus on the characters faces and emotions. They did a half decent job at doing this, by making the actors wear all black colored clothing, but they should have designed it in a way so that all the actors wore the same material as well. My overall experience was a negative one during this play. There was a lot of confusion between scenes and acting that I could not understand. It was also very distracting at times with how different the heights of the actors were. The minimalist set that they had come up with often did not portray what was meant to be happening on the stage even with the screens in the back. I had a very difficult time understanding what was even being presented on the screens. The play itself was very interesting however. The overall message and theme were quite strong, especially since they have a personal impact in my life. I did not find the costumes or directing of the actual play to be up to par with the level of production is was meant to be. I do not think they fully followed the goal of the playwright since most of the audience had trouble following along during the play itself. There were many easily fixable things that could have elevated the play to a whole new level, but since they were not taken advantage of, the play did not do as well as I had imagined while reading it beforehand.