Sophie Treadwell is pretty much a forgotten figure in American literary history, but in her heyday she was a prolific and even celebrated writer. In her long life (1885-1970) she wrote 40 plays, four novels and hundreds of newspaper stories. As a reporter for the San Francisco Bulletin, she went undercover to investigate the lives of homeless women, toured Europe during World War I (1916-1918) and spent considerable time in Mexico, where she interviewed revolutionary Pancho Villa. Treadwell's first play to reach New York was Gringo (1922), but her most famous work was Machinal (1928), the title of which means "mechanical" in French. It was based on a notorious 1927 murder trial, in which Long Island housewife Ruth Snyder and her traveling-salesman lover were convicted of murdering Snyder's husband. Snyder was executed in the electric chair – the first woman to earn this dubious distinction. Treadwell, the complete reporter, was there to witness the execution.
After notable revivals in New York (1990) and London (1993), Machinal has now come to Tampa in a Jobsite Theater production. It's a beautiful show, with strong acting all round and a luminous central performance. But this is expressionist drama, in which subconscious emotions are made manifest while ordinary reality is suppressed, and the result is an experience that's curiously distant, even alien. The typical expressionist rebellion against mechanized society still has resonance, even though the depiction of the main character as an exotic flower too fragile for this coarse planet is a little hard to take. This woman – played brilliantly by Dena Cousins – is no stand-in for the audience; her extreme nervousness, sexual innocence and other-worldly longings feel bizarre to a modern spectator, and you can't help but wonder how she might fare with a little Prozac. Further, nothing in the play ever mitigates her crime: her husband may be pompous but he's not fundamentally evil, and his murder seems mostly a primitive act by a woman too addled to navigate the divorce laws. In other words, you may admire Machinal aesthetically, but I'm not sure you'll like it.
Following the usual expressionist conventions, Treadwell gives no names, or the most generic names, to her odd group of characters. At center stage is Young Woman, who's secretary for a Mr. Jones, and whose colleagues include Stenographer, Filing Clerk, Adding Clerk and Telephone Operator. When the play starts, we learn that Mr. Jones wants to marry Young Woman, but she's not so sure it's a good idea. For one thing, she doesn't love Jones; for another, her "skin curls" when he comes near her, and as she confides to her Mother, "Sometimes I feel like I'm stifling." But hey, this cruel world makes no allowances for such details; next thing we see, Young Woman and Jones are off on their honeymoon, where Jones' sexual advances provoke tears from Young Woman, and the cry, "I want my mother." But cruel world, etc., etc., and next thing we know, Young Woman has had a baby, an experience so shattering that she refuses to see the infant, and promises anxiously, "I've submitted to enough – I won't submit to any more." Her rebellion takes shape as a visit to a speakeasy, where she meets a Man who tells her that he murdered some banditos in Mexico with the help of a bottle filled with pebbles. This is apparently just the sort of guy Young Woman needed; she follows him home and begins an affair, admitting that intimacy with him makes her feel "purifed." Back at home with bourgeois Jones, everything's still wrong: he obsessively takes phone calls about some property he just bought, she finds herself gagging as if drowning, and all the newspaper headlines seem to be encouraging her to crime. Which leads to a courtroom – the murder itself isn't dramatized – during which a relentless Lawyer for the Prosecution tries to prove that our heroine lethally beaned her husband with a vase, filled, you guessed it, with pebbles. At the end, a priest chants and prays while Young Woman, in the Chair, cries out "Somebody! Somebody!"
Jobsite's production, directed by Chris Holcom, is superb. Best of all is actress Cousins, who as Young Woman seems to live in a universe of wild yearnings and unspeakable discomforts. This is grown woman as child: disgusted by the messiness of work, sex and childbirth, wanting only to thrive in some misty castle with her smooth-skinned prince. As egotist husband Mr. Jones, Michael C. McGreevy is also excellent: imperious, supercilious, vastly amused by the world of finance, and utterly insensitive to his skittish bride. The other main character is Young Woman's lover, played persuasively by Stephen Ray; this is an adventurer, a tough hombre of few words, who pretty much lives up to Young Woman's fantasy of what a real man must resemble.
All the other actors are fine in multiple roles – notably Jason Vaughan Evans as a priest and other minor characters, Caroline Jett, Katrina Stevenson, Careena Cornette and Josh Hamel. The other star of the show is Brian Smallheer's set, which is filled with strange geometrical structures that look threateningly mechanical, and can be used as beds, tables, work spaces – or even as an electric chair. Dickie Corley's doomy sound design involves appropriately ominous discordant percussion, and Katrina Stevenson's costumes are just right in every case, featuring everything from officewear to the uniforms on death row.
But does Machinal have anything to say to us? Seventy-seven years ago, critic Brooks Atkinson wrote in the New York Times that the play is "a triumph of individual distinction, gleaming with intangible beauty … an illuminating measured drama such as we are not likely to see again." Local audiences may agree with the "intangible beauty," but as to the drama being "illuminating," I can't guess where it shines its light. On the female psyche? Young Woman is all fantasy and fear, hardly a model of modern femininity. On spousal abuse? Windbag Jones may be callous, but he's never violent or even vitriolic. The motives for murder? There's nothing here that you can't find, more convincingly, in the Enquirer.
No, this is a play that's fascinating mostly for its rarity, wonderfully interesting without ever feeling essential. Think of it as a unique, strangely shaped gem.
And as a fine opportunity to make the acquaintance of that forgotten writer, Sophie Treadwell.
LiveArts No More? The LiveArts Peninsula Foundation, which for five years has presented plays in the Bay area about Florida life and personalities, will probably close down at the end of this month. The reasons are financial troubles (according to one source, a debt of $11,000 at a time when $100,000 is needed to proceed), loss of interest in the foundation by members of its board, and dissatisfaction with the latest draft of Diamond Teeth Mary, a play by New York writer Levy Lee Simon about local blues legend Mary McClain that LiveArts was to premiere later this year.
According to LiveArts Board and Executive Committee member Dar Webb, the decision to put an end to debt-ridden LiveArts was made by the committee after viewing, a few weeks ago, a staged reading of Diamond Teeth Mary. "We all felt that we had to have a home run with the Diamond Teeth Mary production. And we weren't overwhelmed, we weren't underwhelmed, we were just sort of whelmed… Where we were at that production failed to excite any of us." Webb added that another factor in the decision was "a falling off of interest" in LiveArts by Board members – fewer and fewer of whom were showing up for called meetings.
Executive Director Harry Chittenden says he's "broken-hearted" about the decision to close, but concedes that finances make it necessary. "LiveArts is ceasing operations because we basically don't have the resources to go on," he said. The foundation needs $100,000 to produce Diamond Teeth Mary "and to keep our month-to-month operation going till then, to pay for the marketing and so forth."
A big problem was the meager turnout for LiveArts' most recent production, Crossing The Bay, by Bill Leavengood and Lee Ahlin. "This operated at about 20 percent capacity," said Chittenden. "If we had done 30 percent, I don't think we'd be in this spot right now."
Not everyone who attended the reading of Diamond Teeth Mary was unhappy with it. Chittenden said he found the reading indicative that "we're making progress." And writer/musician Pete Gallagher, who originally suggested Diamond Teeth Mary as a subject, agreed. Gallagher (an occasional Planet contributor) attended the staged reading of Mary and said, "At the end of it, everybody stood up and gave a standing ovation… It was just a very heartwarming play… To see the thing kind of come to life in front of you – to me it was stunning, I thought, 'This is great.'"
Because Diamond Teeth Mary pays tribute to a beloved black artist, the Bay area African-American community will feel the loss keenly if the show is never produced, said LiveArts board member Gwendolyn Reese. "I think the impact in the community of color, where there was so much interest in this play… For it just to be dropped by the wayside – I think we really need to say to the community, yes, we're closing, but we believe this play is significant historically and culturally, we aren't able to do it but we're going to work in trying to find a home for this play because we do believe it should be produced."
A letter has been sent to all LiveArts board members asking that they agree to dissolve the foundation as of June 30.
If there was ever a time for last-minute heroics – by someone with a checkbook – this would seem to be it.
This article appears in Jun 8-14, 2005.
