“Machinal” was a wild and crazy ride through the life of a fatalistic women, distraught by the stress, complexity, and monotony of society. Helen (the main character) gives an outstanding performance. I know that its not unusual to the actor but it always amazes me how the actors memorize all their lines and still are able to create that much of an impact through dramatization. Helen’s acting is intense, emotional and very believable. If I meet her on the streets in the 1920’s I would think she was in fact real. Throughout the play many people harass Helen. In the office co-workers harass her for being late. Her mother nags her at home about what to do with her life. Even her annoying husband George, that is supposed to love and protect makes her feel insignificant and cold. Basically Helen cracks up and looses a couple screws. After giving birth to her child, all of her rage and anxiety explodes. She becomes suicidal and rants about spiritu!
             al stuff to the point of hysteria. But this lunacy and insanity gets old and I thought the play started to get a little boring. The costumes, scenery, sets, and lighting are pretty simple in the first scenes. I was expecting a really gorgeous set and bright beautiful colors in this play considering its going to Washington D.C. But the costumes all seemed to melt into one another so to speak. Usually I thought that costumes should define many aspects about the character, but in “Machinal,” it seemed that all the costumes were the same shade. Also the characters played multiple roles . I hate this when a director makes one actor play many different roles because it takes away the imagination of the audience. I would have liked to see a number of different people in the play even though they were smaller roles I would have like to see different characters play these roles. Lighting there was not much to say about the lighting in the fir...