Review: SUDS’ Machinal — Modern, disturbing, and absurdly funny

SUDS’ penultimate slot delivers biting social commentary and razor-sharp performances.

Image: Mariika Mehigan

There are times in Machinal where it's easy to forget you’re watching student theatre.  Between many commendable performances, well designed sets and soundscapes, and a clever configuration of the Cellar Theatre, SUDS’ slot 11 production of the expressionist play calls to mind Sydney Theatre Company’s recent slate of Gothic novel adaptations under Kip Williams. In both, a talented cast and crew are able to find new meaning in well-trodden classics, pairing tongue-in-cheek homage with serious and generous treatment of its enduring themes. 

Directed by Georgie Eggleton and Nikki Eghlimi, Machinal was written by American journalist Sophie Treadwell in 1928. It’s based on the story of New York homemaker and convicted criminal Ruth Snyder, as ensemble member Hamish Lewis explains to me after the play. 

It’s easy to overlook this context when the social commentary offered seems so fresh. The play opens with most of its talented ensemble (Luke Mešterović, Hamish Lewis, Sophie Newby, Adele Beaumont, Annika Bates, and Vita Jerram) assembled in a production line, where the chaos of the scene is out of step with the work’s banality. 

It’s only when the madness of the scene begins to border on sensory overload does Helen, the play’s distraught young protagonist played by Daisy Semmler, float onto the scene, anxious over her boss Mr Jones’ (Jeremy Jenkins) unwanted affection.

This sets the tone for the play: the intense, accentuated depcition of particular social ills, from exploitative workplaces to bad healthcare to sexual predation, turns the play into a mosaic of Helen’s suffering. Treated as little more than a cog, Helen lacks the autonomy to drive her own narrative forward. While we languish with her in her despair, we never forget the systemic and social forces that drove her there. 

Like the cast, the skill of Machinal’s crew shines from the get-go. Jim Bradshaw and Alexander Maltas’ cacophonous sound design combines mechanical tones (there is a constant and grating whirring noise throughout the first scene) with subtle, haunting soundtracks that wouldn’t be out of place in a horror show. 

The set, designed by Paris, Katarina Butler, and Elodie Roumanoff, is a simple assembly of wire, levelled boxes, and mirrors in the back corners. Utilitarian and flexible - kudos to the stage team for their efficient scene changes - it is reassembled across a variety of scenes and situations without ever giving the impression that Helen can escape its rigid confines. Alec Traill and Will Maddock’s costumes veer between the historically accurate and the eclectic, while nearly all characters wear heavy eye makeup and contour. The resulting absurdity of the cast’s appearance feels entirely in step with the rest of the production. 

It’s difficult to isolate just one really good performance. With most of Machinal’s cast forming part of its ensemble, the play’s strength is undoubtedly in their ability to perform as a dynamic and, at times, extremely funny, troupe. A stand-out dynamic, however, is the foil created between Helen’s two partners: her unappealing and shamelessly conceited husband, played by Jenkins, and the lover she meets in a speakeasy, played by Newby.

Jenkins superbly evokes the creep, violence, and insularity of an overbearing husband, and is brilliantly counterbalanced by the worldly, quiet charm of Newby’s nomadic character. While Helen’s relationship with the latter undoubtedly provides refuge, one never gets the sense she is safe, secure, or valued as much more than a passing fling. This is confirmed when he ultimately betrays her in the final scenes of the play. Helen is floored by this, but in a markedly different way to earlier traumas in the play, demonstrating the cast’s commendable sensitivity to the weight of their subject matter. 

All in all, there’s not much to fault with the Cellar Theatre’s penultimate play of the year. 

Eggleton and Eghlimi, as well as producers Aqsa Suryana and Danny Yazdani, should be commended for their thoughtful and brilliant adaptation of Treadwell’s vision: portraying a life destroyed, but never disconnected, from the external forces that shape the fortunes of poor women.

 Machinal runs at the Cellar Theatre until October 15. Tickets available here.