Machinal

Machinal  The first time that I attended a play at the cellar theater was for the production of Vanya. The set for that play was very well constructed. It was built in the image of the interior of a Pennsylvanian home that was well lit and decorated. When I walked into the theater on that evening, I was not only greeted by that set, but also pleasurable music as well. When I went to go see the production of Machinal, it was as if it was opposite day. To start off, when I walked into the theater, the performing area was extremely dark and the background music that played while the audience waited was sporadic piano playing which created an almost eerie atmosphere. Instead of an elaborate set like that of Vanya, this time all there was were eight to ten big black boxes and a panel of monitors in the back center of the performing area. Everything had a very dark feel to it based off all of these factors and elements and created a tone as such before the play even began. Other than the panel of monitors, another way I would describe the set of this play is minimalistic. To me this can be both a good and bad thing. Good because it challenges the players to create their environment by their acting rather than relying on the use of props and a set, but it can be bad because if they cannot do this then the audience is more likely to get lost and not know what is going on. I would also believe that a reason for this minimalistic set design is also due to the fact that there are nine different scenes in Machinal and this being performed in the cellar theater, it would have been extremely difficult to set up the items needed to create each scene in such a small space. If this were done upstairs in the main theater, then I think that an elaborate set designwould be more practical.  When the play starts we see the continuation of the all black theme and minimalism. The players come out dressed in all black attire. Just black shirts and pants is all they needed for this production. No elaborate clothes or makeup was needed and that to me was good because if the performers had done so, it would have made this a little unbalanced with the simple design of the set. As the performers began, I at first was a bit lost because I was not expecting how fast the pace would be.  The story opens in an office setting with several of the characters performing their tasks. It seemed to me that they were conveyingthis by the use of their body language along with scripted lines. Again it was important that they were able to do this well due to the simple stage and lack of props. This scene was very important because it set up the main characters in this story as well as the story itself. The main character whom this play revolves around is a young women who is pursued by her boss, but she is not interested in him. Halfway through the play, she ends up marrying him and that sends her life into a downward spiral. She seemed very resentful and disgusted by even the slightest touch of him, but she gave into him because of the financial spot that she and her mother were in. In one scene, she meets a young man who she seems to truly fall in love with but by that point she was already years into her marriage and had a young daughter with her husband. The young man speaks of life south of the border in Mexico and creates a longing in her to be free from the life she is in now and ultimately kills her husband as a means to an escape.  The lighting follows the simplicity of the other parts of the play as well. An aspect of the lighting that I had not seen before was that in many moments in the play, the characters would break out flash lights and the theater lighting would be cut out. All that the audience would be able to see was the illuminated faces and bodies of the characters in that moment. This would be used in moments of monologue or in dynamic moments between characters. As was mentioned earlier, there was a panel of monitors in the back of the performing area. These were connected so that they could help bring a sense to the scenes that the characters were in. For instance, there was a scene where the young woman is in her home with her mother in New York. The panels in the back displayed a very colorful image of buildings one might expect to see someone live in. Not high quality condos in skyscrapers, but medium to low income homes in the Bronx or even Brooklyn. In the last scene where the women is in jail, the monitors display windows with bars in them to help give representation to the scene.  The boxes used in Machinal served many purposes. From seats to a judges stand, they were used as props in a variety of ways throughout the play. I do not recall the exact number, but there were about ten to twelve of them and they could be stack on top of one another. I also remember them even being used for sound affects as well. In scene there was supposed to be an airplane flying over the scene and by dragging his hands across the box, one of the actors was able to create a sound affect that could be heard as an airplane engine. In the closing moment of the play, the women is sent to death by electrocution and in order to do this, the boxes were stacked up three high and with the combined use of the flashlights, the players created the effect of an electrocution by standing behind the boxes with the women and flashing multiple lights on and off. The flashes of light were able to be seen through the holes on the sides of the boxes.  This play did not call for much sound in regards to music in general. Sound effects that were required were created by the cast themselves on stage. This was done by use of the boxes as was mentioned earlier. There were moments when the cast would sing, but it was not in the way of a musical number. It would not last longer than about a minute or so. I thought that those characters who sang did a fantastic job and their cast was spot on.  After the play was over, I wanted to see how other performances stacked up against this one. Now I know that it isnot reasonable to compare a lower budget college performance to those of Broadway and other renowned production companies, but there was one thing that I thought this performance did that was very intriguing. From what I recall, there were a total of ten actors and actresses that put on this play. When I saw the list of characters the play has I was astounded that it had over twenty-eight different roles. That meant that other than the main character of the women, the other nine players had to learn these different parts and then portray them as the play ran. I think it would be hard to do that because whether it be in a movie or a play, when we are introduced to a character, we associate the actor or actress who portrays them to that character alone. Each time the set changed so did majority of the other characters. The actors and actresses in this rendition of Machinal did a fabulous job transitioning between characters. One reason I think that was done well was because of the pace this play moved at. It moving as fast as it did, the audience had to keep up with the main characters and the story itself rather than the minor roles, so I believe that this helped with the other players changing their parts throughout the play. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX30701776" style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-size: 16px;"> Overall I thought that this play was well executed. In complete honesty I am not a huge fan of expressionism which is what this play came off to me as. I prefer realism, but I know that many people would consider this to be a form of realism. I was able to keep up with the main plot of the story, but in order to do so you have to be paying close attention to the fast paced speed of this production. I believe that the vision the director had for this was realized. I could tell that when I saw that the cellar theater was almost completely filled that this was a play that had already had good reception from those who had already seen it. If someone were to ask if I recommend seeing this play I would tell them that it would not be a terrible decision to see it. I would tell them that it is a fast hour and twenty minutes and to not just casually watch but to pay attention to what is being done with so little.