The Adding Machine

Adding Machine, The (1923), a tragedy by Elmer Rice. [ Garrick Theatre, 72 perf.] On the 25th anniversary of his employment by the Firm, Mr. Zero (Dudley Digges) is told by the Boss (Irving Dillon) that modern adding machines have replaced him. In a blind fury, Mr. Zero kills his employer. Mr. Zero's harridan wife, Mrs. Zero (Helen Westley), offers him no consolation as he is tried and then executed. After death Mr. Zero haunts a graveyard and the Elysian Fields, rejecting the company of those who would lure him from his narrow but purposeful ways. His only comforter becomes Daisy Diana Dorothea Devore (Margaret Wycherly), his onetime co‐worker, who has killed herself to be with him. In heaven, Mr. Zero briefly finds satisfaction operating a gigantic adding machine, until he is ordered to return to Earth. He refuses to go back until he learns that he has been doing just that for many incarnations and will continue to do so until he is a totally crushed soul doomed to “sit in the gallery of a coal mine and operate the super‐hyper‐adding machine with the great toe of his right foot.” Many of New York's most perceptive critics agreed with John Corbin, who wrote that the Theatre Guild's production of The Adding Machine was “the best and fairest example of the newer expressionism in the theatre, that it has yet experienced.” Along with a fine cast and the superb direction of Philip Moeller, the original production offered Lee Simonson's imaginative sets. The bars and railings in the courtroom set were distorted, Mr. Zero's fury was suggested by large numbers whirling across the stage, and in heaven there was that huge adding machine, which Mr. Zero could walk on. This last piece nearly prevented the show from being seen, when an internal union disagreement erupted over whether it was a set or a prop. For all its excellence, The Adding Machine had only a modest Broadway run, but it remained popular for years with college and experimental theatres and established Rice as a major playwright.

For other uses, see Adding machine (disambiguation).

The Adding Machine is a 1923 play by Elmer Rice, and is generally considered to be the first American Expressionist play. The story focuses on Mr. Zero, an accountant at a large, faceless company. After 25 years at his job, he discovers that he will be replaced by an adding machine. In anger and pain, he snaps and kills his boss. He is then tried for murder and is found guilty. He is then hanged and wakes up in an almost heaven-like setting known as "The Elysian Fields." Mr. Zero then begins to operate an adding machine, until Lieutenant Charles, the boss of the Elysian Fields, comes to tell Zero that he is a waste of space and his soul is going to be sent back to the earth to be reused. The play ends with Zero following a very attractive girl named Hope off stage, who might not actually exist.

The play was an influence on the Tennessee Williams play Stairs to the Roof. Years later, it was adapted into a 1969 film of the same name, written and directed by Jerome Epstein and starring Milo O'Shea, Phyllis Diller, Billie Whitelaw and Sydney Chaplin.

Musical adaptation

Main article: Adding Machine (musical)

In 2007, the play was adapted into a musical entitled Adding Machine with a score by Joshua Schmidt and book by Jason Loewith and Schmidt. The musical debuted in Illinois at the Next Theatre Company in 2007. It then opened Off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre on February 25, 2008, after previews that started February 8.^[1]

References

1. ^ playbill article, February 8, 2008, Adding Machine, a Hit Musical in Chicago, Bows in NYC Feb. 8

External links

• The Adding Machine at the Internet Broadway Database
• Adding Machine Marks 76th Birthday, a 1999 article from Playbill
• 2003 production from an online guide to Chicago, Illinois
• The Adding Machine (1969 film adaptation) at the Internet Movie Database

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