This weekend, Otterbein opened a regional premiere of acclaimed Off-Broadway musical Adding Machine, written by Joshua Schmidt music and Schmidt and Jason Loweth (libretto). This production, directed by Lenny Leibowitz, soars to the depths of the human condition. The original 1923 play by Elmer Rice was an early American grappling with Brecht and Ibsen, playing with the artificiality of the stage and also stripping the heroic element out of the classic American folk song “John Henry.” Putting that to music, Schmidt and Loweth land somewhere between Springsteen’s “Johnny 99” and Warren Zevon’s “Indifference of Heaven” but with the spiky harmonies and razor-shiny dissonances of high modernism leavened with slinky torch-song noir jazz.
Adding Machine follows Mr. Zero (JT Wood), a man who never caught a break but never did much to go after that break for himself. We see him kill his boss (Trey Plutnicki) after an assumed raise/promotion for working 25 years at the same job instead leads to his firing and replacement by the eponymous device. He moons over his assistant, Daisy Devore (Payton Tevis), and in the same breath says “Why don’t you just die already.” He admits to fantasizing about his wife’s (Lottie Mae Prevenost) death and mooning over her cooking while on death row but also suggesting she give the scrapbook she’s made to his would-be mistress. Befriends and berates a fellow murderer he meets in jail, Shrdlu (Kenneth Remaklus).
Mr. Zero finds himself in a kind of Heaven, Elysian Fields; paradise because as Shurdlu says, “Nobody cares!” He reunites with Daisy who has killed herself “accidental, on purpose,” echoing his one fumbling move at a company picnic. He can’t find satisfaction there either. Wood’s face lighting up at an enormous, afterlife adding machine, churning out reams of paper no one will check and no one will look at, is as heartbreaking and soul-crushing an image as I’ve seen in theatre. Even more crushing than his resignation to walk into the “great machine” to have his soul re-purposed as another cog in society’s machine.
JT Wood’s performance is magic. One of Columbus’ most incisive and likable actors turns that canny intelligence to a character devoid of self-awareness and any redeeming qualities. He plays the Calvinist sense that some people matter and some people don’t as something bone-deep, it’s almost muscle memory. Watching Wood tear into thorny, knotted songs like “Zero’s Confession” is a sliver of light breaking through cracking plaster.
When Charles, the afterlife’s “boss” (Plutnicki), says Zero’s cursed by his provincialism and stupidity and snarls through a breakdown of the work they have to do to clean and patch his rotted soul every time he dies, the two men together send sparks through the room. The icepick in the eye of this production is its lack of willingness to talk about God or the Devil; as in society, there are only bosses. Adding Machine leaves in the air the lingering question: is Zero’s inability to progress being a lack of gumption on his part or having a lack of possibilities ground into his face from birth? Leibowitz’s production, in the shadows of Dan Gray’s remarkable set that recalls a Lee Bontecou sculpture, lets that basic question seep into everything else over the tight 90 minutes.
One of the great problems of this piece is its deep-dive into the misogyny of society and the era too often feels like wallowing in that misogyny. The performances are so strong and so nuanced, they keep that sense at bay as much as possible. Lottie Mae Prevenost’s acid delivery as she threads the ensemble’s “In Numbers” into “Something to Be Proud Of” (spoiler: she doesn’t find anything) and her vibrating, real reaction and melee with Wood on “Mrs. Devore/I Was a Fool” does as much to lift Mrs. Zero out of a dated henpecking-wife stereotype as anyone could. Payton Tevis’ Daisy jaw-dropping feature turns on “I’d Rather Watch With You” and “Daisy’s Confession” share a hinting at what could have been, doing what a musical does better than any other form with layers of psychology shifting over and through one another.
The small band, Lori Kay Harvey on piano (also music director), Dennis Davenport on synths, and Tomasz Jarzecki on drums, make every contour and nuance of the darkness in the score shine, transparent and cloudy when it needs to be. The Ensemble astonish here, with special attention to Jack Labrecque, Noel Isaacson, and Leah Windahl. Their sunglass-clad shifting forms in Elysian Fields and their braying dinner conversation at a dinner party reinforce everything as a dehumanized piece. They translate the tricky, spiky score into the fabric of the world as a series of distinct, organic movements that never get too far out of line.
For those of us who don’t mind a cold wind, Otterbein’s Adding Machine is an astringent tonic. A delightfully nihilistic romp that doesn’t shy away from sadly persistent themes about modern life. It’s unlike anything on a Columbus stage right now.
Adding Machine runs through October 28 with performances at 8:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. For tickets and more info, visit otterbein.edu.
(Feature image: J.T. Wood (Mr. Zero), left to right and front to back, with Payton Tevis (Daisy), Kevin Buckley (Ensemble), Ceci Trippiedi (Ensemble), Reuben Reese (Mr. One), and Noël Isaacson (Mae).)