Machinal

There is something so familiar about this play’s depiction of what it feels like to move through the world as a woman. This familiarity comes both from Treadwell’s artistry and the disturbing realization that 95 years later, people still recognize the experience of existing in a system that was not made for them—of being subjected to machinery made for other bodies. 

Our approach to this work was an attempt to create a collaborative, investigative process that would let us tease out the ways in which collective reality is specifically and individually experienced. We aimed to create something that hearkened to #allwomen without pretending to be every woman. 

Theresa Lang
Director, Machinal

In Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 feminist tour-de-force, Machinal, a young woman struggles to find her place in a society that was not made for her. Treadwell uses theatrical expressionism— shallow characters, repetitive dialogue, episodic scenes, and invasive sound effects—to portray a world that has become impersonal and unfeeling; a world that only has room for those who are willing to submit and conform.

Throughout the play, the young woman repeatedly finds herself in opposition to the mechanization and materialization of the modern world. She is resistant to the daily office grind, resistant to marriage and motherhood, resistant to the idea of female “purity” and sexual restraint. But when she refuses to submit to society’s demands, she disrupts the rhythm and intention of the modern “machine.” The machine was not designed to accommodate disruptions. It was not designed for women to thrive. The young woman’s inability—or, depending on how you look at it, her unwillingness—to submit to the demands and expectations of a society that values conformity over individuality is what ultimately takes her life.

Despite having been written nearly a century ago, Machinal shows us a world that is strikingly similar to our own. The male characters have more power, wealth, stability, and influence than the female characters because that is the machine’s intended function. It’s the men in the young woman’s life—her husband, a doctor, her lover, a judge—who have the power to determine her fate. How, then, can a woman fight back? How can she resist and also survive? Is she destined, as one character states, to “submit—right to the end”? In a society that holds no space for her, she must find a way to make a space for herself.

Sophie Treadwell, playwright,  started her career as an investigative journalist and serial writer, covering such subjects as homelessness, prostitution, factory work, equal pay, and immigration. During World War I, she traveled throughout Europe becoming one of the first state-accredited female foreign war correspondents. She was also an actor and a playwright, and she often performed in and/or produced her own work. Between 1907 and 1967, she wrote more than 30 plays, seven of which were produced on Broadway. Treadwell’s Expressionistic masterpiece, Machinal, opened at the Plymouth Theatre in September 1928 and ran for 91 performances. After a glowing review, a New York Times editorial declared that “the only recent play which seems worthy of preservation is Machinal…It seems timeless. In a hundred years it should still be vital and vivid.” Learn more about Treadwell.

EPISODE 1: To Business
EPISODE 2: At Home
EPISODE 3: Honeymoon
EPISODE 4: Maternal
EPISODE 5: Prohibited
EPISODE 6: Intimate
EPISODE 7: Domestic
EPISODE 8: The Law
EPISODE 9: A Machine

YOUNG WOMAN – Meghan DeRoche
YOUNG WOMAN – Sierra Lancaster
YOUNG WOMAN – Maddi LeBlanc
YOUNG WOMAN – Madison Margaret Clark
TELEPHONE GIRL – Zoë Maloney
STENOGRAPHER – Carlyn Jade Barenholtz
MOTHER – Olive Schettino
NURSE – Eevie Perez
WOMAN AT TABLE 1 – Ali Ragazzini
GIRL IN BAR/THIRD REPORTER – Claire May
COURT REPORTER – Madeline Finkleman
FIRST REPORTER – Ciara D’Hondt
SECOND REPORTER – Nora Hurley
MATRON – Lauren Manna
GEORGE H. JONES – Alex Leondedis
FIRST MAN/CLERKS/JAILER – Caetano De Sa
ADDING CLERK/MAN AT TABLE 1/JUDGE/PRIEST – Sage Jepson
FILING CLERK/DOCTOR/MAN AT BAR/BAILIFF/BARBER – Sam Griffin
BELLBOY/BOY AT BAR/DEFENSE LAWYER/GUARD – Gabe Seplow
SECOND MAN/PROSECUTION LAWYER/GUARD – Gable Kinsman

Director – Theresa Lang
Assistant Directors – Eliza Kelley and Sydney Roslin
Dramaturg – Julie-Anne Whitney
Assistant Dramaturg – Nicole Fluegge 
Intimacy and Fight Choreographer – Angie Jepson
Lighting Designer – Deb Sullivan
Costume Designer – Kara Branch
Scenic Designer – Jenna McFarland Lord
Sound Designer – Anna Drummond

Theresa Lang, director, is a director and dramaturg who is committed to the practice of ensemble, the creation of new work, and the amplification of marginalized voices. She is a professor of theater at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where she recently directed Metamorphoses and Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play. Learn more.

Sydney Roslin, assistant director, is an emerging performer, director, and writer currently in the final year of Boston Conservatory at Berklee’s M.F.A. in musical theater program. Previous directing credits include The Addams Family (Lippa), The Idiot Box (Elyanow), and A Hand of Bridge (Barber/Menotti). A frequent collaborator on new works, Roslin's directing projects also include the premieres of the plays From the Past and Akristos, as well as the chamber opera Deed of Trust.

Eliza Kelley (she/they), assistant director, is a director, deviser, puppeteer, and actor currently finishing their senior year in Boston Conservatory at Berklee’s B.F.A. in contemporary theater program. Their work mainly focuses on social activism, expressionism, and instigating connection within their community. Previous credits include sleepyhead: strange dream analysis, a devised surrealist capstone piece, and Inheritance: A Work in Progress, a devised site-specific voyeuristic piece directed by Tectonic Theater project cofounder Andy Paris.

Julie-Anne Whitney, dramaturg, is a dramaturg, playwright, and arts administrator. Previous dramaturgical credits include Into the Breeches (HUB Theatre) and The Half-Life of Marie Curie (The Nora/Central Square Theater). She is a candidate for an M.F.A. in creative writing from Lesley University (projected June 2022) and holds a B.A. in theater arts from Plymouth State University.

Nicole Fluegge (she/her), assistant dramaturg, is a current student in Boston Conservatory at Berklee’s B.F.A. in musical theater program. Machinal is her debut in a dramaturgy role.

Anna Drummond (they/she), sound designer, is a freelance sound designer specializing in live theater, podcasting, and audiobooks who has worked for SpeakEasy Stage (BLKS, Pass Over), Company One (Leftovers), Huntington Theatre Company (Dream Boston: 3 Miles), Trinity Repertory and Brown University (Eurydice, Prowess), Boston Conservatory at Berklee (Everybody), Northeastern University (Deferred), and Emerson College (In The Red & Brown Water, Alchemy of Desire/Dead Man’s Blues, We Are PussyRiot, Into The Woods, The Hobbit, etc.). Drummond holds a B.A. with honors in sound design and audio post-production from Emerson College. 

Deb Sullivan, lighting designer, is a Boston-based designer with credits at Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Actors Shakespeare Project, Alliance Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, Huntington Theatre, Two River Theatre, New Rep, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Harbor Stage Co., Gloucester Stage, The Public Theatre NYSF, SpeakEasy Stage Company, and Trinity Repertory Company. Sullivan currently serves as technical director at Dana Hall School.

Kara Branch, costume designer, is a New York-based costume designer whose recent credits include Fidelio (Heartbeat Opera Company), Till: The Musical (American Theater Group), The End of Hester, Imagining Madoff, and Brecht: Call and Response (New Light Theater Project), Hamilton (Broadway and National Tours), Slave Play (Broadway), The Secret Life of Bees (Atlantic Theater Company), By the Way and Meet Vera Stark (Signature Theater Company), and Detroit ’67 (The McCarter Theater). Learn more.

Jenna Mcfarland Lord (she/her), scenic designer, has previously designed for Boston Conservatory at Berklee’s productions of The Frogs, Cabaret, Three Penny Opera, The Full Monty, Twelfth Night, and Cosi Fan Tutte, as well as for companies and educational institutions such as SpeakEasy Stage Company, Gloucester Stage Company, Lyric Stage, Actors Shakespeare Project, New Repertory Theatre, Greater Boston Stage Company, Central Square Theatre, Brandeis University, Northeastern, and Stonehill College. She has also designed Off-Broadway at La Mama and The New York Playwrights Lab, and currently teaches set design at Boston Arts Academy. Learn more.

PRODUCTION STAFF
Stage Manager – Grace Dolan
Assistant Stage Managers – Emily Hanson, Nick Nyquist
Ticket Operations and Patron Services Manager – Kelly Brennan

STUDENT PRODUCTION STAFF
Production Assistants – Evelyn Dumeer, Emma Fettig, Julia Grace Kelley, Carly Nadeau, Kalika Reece 
Run Crew – Jaiden Jones, Isabel Leoni, Shay McQueenie, Juliette M Ojeda, Jack Romero
Wardrobe – Anna Kate Gossett, Hakoa Harbottle
Light Board – Sydney Shuck