Word: oddness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Wedged under a heavy corner of Adams House in the piped labyrinth of the basement there are two unmarked wooden doors. Behind them, three or four rooms wind inwards like the chambers of a shell. They are cluttered with odd implements--worn-wood museum pieces with too many handles and big, gripless screws. There are empty racks and cupboards full of metals. There is a smell of deepening rubber. And nested in the inner room, there is the press...
...this sterility, the play opens as dark lighting and odd music fade into a sharply lit, sanitary office. The dialogue is reminiscent of a machine, and the office becomes a highly functional organism. The Filing Clerk (Randy Gomes '02) and the Adding Clerk (Eddie Montoya '02) do a fabulous job of doubling dialogue and repeating each other with static variations. Coupled with the aimless chatter of the Stenographer (Kate Agresta '02) and the Telephone Girl (Thandi Parris '01), an environment of alienation is complete. Everything about this world is artificial, including the commotion when Helen (Erica Rabbit '00) enters...
...theater achieves its completion in the last scene. The costuming is radical; both Parris and Agresta, executioners, are dressed in metallic-punk-dominatrix suits, and Gunn, the priest, wears a silver robe. The sense that all dialogue is a voice-over creates the impression that the actors are merely odd configurations of marionettes. In this scene, people have fully transformed into machines. Helen's appeals for mercy seem to be almost rays of light bouncing off the darkened stage, for she is the only lit figure. Suddenly, strobe lights destroy the darkness, and the execution is complete...
...Strange yet fascinating, Machinal angers, excites and disturbs. One wishes for a more concrete understanding of the stilted dialogue and the odd movements of the actors and actresses, yet the sense of not fully understanding the dynamics of the plot piques the audience's interest. Machinal reinforces the audience's worst suspicions through its oddly lit, sparsely staged and undeveloped emotional tension, for the play suggests that emotions do not matter, and existence is merely a sterilized and mechanical occurrence...
...always seemed to me odd that proctors are systematically evaluated before reappointment, and even faculty are evaluated, through CUE questionnaires, before they are promoted, but there is no requirement that student opinions be solicited before a tutor is reappointed," Lewis wrote in an e-mail message...