About the Play:

Machinal is a full-length drama by Sophie Treadwell. A young woman is pushed to breaking point by the relentless machinery of life, expectation and convention, based on the true crime story of Ruth Snyder. Considered a masterpiece of early 20th-century American theatre, Machinal weaves harrowing courtroom drama and an expressionistic style to chart the journey of a woman driven to murder.

Machinal is the dark, dark story of a jazz age woman provoked to violence in the face of society's repressive expectations exacerbated by her own demons. The title (pronounced maw-kee-NAHL) derives from the French, loosely translated as "machine-like" or "automatic." Machinal revolves around the character Helen whose entire life has been dictated by the people and machines around her. She follows the rituals that society expects of a woman, however resistant she may feel about them, and subsequently marries her boss, whom she finds repulsive. After having a baby with him, followed by an affair with a younger man who fuels her lust for life, she is driven to murder her husband. She is found guilty of the crime and meets her end in one of the deadliest of machines, the electric chair. The story of a woman buckling under the weight of social tradition and technological advancement, this gripping drama is inspired by the infamous real life case of convicted and executed murderess Ruth Snyder.

Machinal premiered in 1928 at the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway. It was a critical hit with a cast featuring a relative unknown Clark Gable, marking a significant early role before his Hollywood superstardom. The play was then seen in London in 1931 under the title of The Life Machine. The show enjoyed a Laurence Olivier award-winning revival in 1993 at London's National Theatre, and was revived on Broadway at American Airlines Theatre in 2014. The play is a favourite of theatre groups dedicated to neglected work by female playwrights. 

Cast: 10 female, 14 male (doubling)

What people say:

"A desperate life blazes amid devouring shadows in ... Machinal, Sophie Treadwell's fascinating play from 1928 about one woman's captivity in a hell called New York City. A work of] rare and disturbing beauty." — The New York Times

"Sophie Treadwell's 1928 expressionist psychodrama, Machinal, is an airless examination of a desperate woman's convulsive reaction against the confinement of marriage and motherhood in a society shaped by men and money." — The Hollywood Reporter

"Stingingly fresh and provocative." — Time Out New York

"Gripping ... doesn't loosen its hold on the senses until its shattering climax." — The Independent

About the Playwright:

Sophie Treadwell (1885-1970) was a prolific and successful playwright and a campaigning journalist in America between the wars. But Machinal is the one work for which she is known today. Its plot was pulled from headlines when she was assigned to cover the trial of Ruth Snyder, a Long Island housewife who with her lover, Judd Gray, murdered her husband and died in the electric chair at Sing Sing.

Judith E. Barlow is Professor Emeritus of English and Women's Studies at the University at Albany-SUNY. She is the editor of Plays By American Women 1900-1930 and Women Writers of the Provincetown Players, as well as numerous essays on American Drama. The prestigious Judith Barlow Prize is a student award given annually for an original one-act play that has been inspired by the work of a historic woman playwright.