Jaystarr's 10/10 Report on ADDING MACHINE.- Page 2

Posted: 4/14/08 at 9:47am

i had no interest in this show, but the pierre et gille-ness of THE AFTERLIFE photos has me intrigued.

[jaystarr]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 10:07am

Actually..there's one more scene... that's not in the photos....IT WAS A VERY BEAUTIFUL SCENERY with projections! without giving it much!

The show is indeed very hard to appreciate....Its almost not entertaining in a HAIRSPRAY or XANADU way.. if that's what youre looking for. The good thing about the show is ...IT HAS A MESSAGE at the END....and it would made you think?

The scenery has that some sort of....."confinement" & claustrophobic to it... its very dark...very colorless....my interpretation was... this was the life of Mr. Zero...who for 25 yrs was doing the same monotonous job...if you think about it.. his job before was to take down dictations of numbers from Daisy from the company's expense. Can you imagine how boring could that be?

I think the scenery, lighting & score was a reflection of that monotous and tiresome life.

There was a scene that I really like~it may not be for everyone again..The dinner scene where six identical couples whose names are Mr. One & Mr. Two and their spouses..Mrs.One & Mrs. Two-Can you imagine why the characters' names are like that? ( I will go back to this later) Its almost soo erie! They are speaking about American daily lives in the 20's ...gossips....which is a critism about common place vulgarities, hypocrisy and social injustices.

*****SPOILERS*****

Speaking of characters' names- There's only two characters with REAL NAMES- Daisy & Shrdlu.. Why? this is just my intrepreation, okay? its bec. the two characters chose to go against the norm and break the cycles of things- its like numbers..adding..so systematically.... Daisy- commiting suicide by blowing the gas tank in her apartment to pursue Mr. Zero..( the love of her life) and Shrdlu- its sounds macabre.but for killing his mother.. he slashed the throat of his mother~which (for me) symbolizes cutting off the social norms....

****END****

The musical is very different... I like it bec. it explores something that never been talk a lot~ which is to BREAK in the CYCLE of things.....

if you think about it....Somehow..all of us... is a SLAVE of social norms that society itself imposes on us...and we cannot really escape..no matter what!

J*




Updated On: 4/14/08 at 10:07 AM

[rb2008]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 2:02pm

Hey,

Here are LOTS OF SPOILERS in re: names in the Adding Machine.

Of course this musical is based on the play, which is expressionist drama. Hence the show distorts reality in most aspects, right on down to the names of the characters. Mr. Zero, Mr. One, Mr. Two and their female counterparts are named because they are a part of the compartmentalized, rigid number world. (You also hear in the musical about other numbers... Mrs. Zero sings about gossip from Mrs. Twelve, Mrs. Nine, and Mrs. Seven, so we can assume there are many people living in the "machine" world of day-to-day predictability. In the actual play, we meet other number characters.)

The character of Daisy is a part of the number world, but we see her display tendencies reaching outside of that. She is the only female character we see express desire for "love" in the piece, but being trapped in the number world, she often second guesses herself back to the norm. For example, in the office scene, she dreams of being kissed like in the movies by Mr. Zero, but when she's rejected for his work, her daydreams turn to thoughts of jumping off of buildings and poisoning herself with mercury. And instead of the beautiful movie kiss she expects earlier, she begins her song (I'd Rather Watch You) with "I don't give a darn for the movies/They bore me to tears, can't you see?" Only to go on and have a classic, idealistic period love song. She is a Daisy, trying to grow and blossom in this dreary world of the machine, and only to find disappointment around every corner. Even in the afterlife, where the flowers look almost artificial.

Shrdlu is never named directly by any character in the play. He is only referred to by Zero as "buddy," and only once, and the only reason anyone would know what his name is is through reading the program or being familiar with the piece. This is an interesting one:

In the jail scene, we find out that Shrdlu was a proofreader of a shoe catalog before killing his mother. In those days, papers, magazines, catalogues, etc. were set by a linotype machine, which was a giant machine that made an imprint in hot metal, which would then be turned into pages of text after proofreading. The keyboard of this machine was NOT set up like our keyboards, with the top line of letters arranged starting with "QWERTY." Instead, there were vertical columns of letters, arranged to the frequency of use in the English language. I'll attach an image to show you. The first column being "ETAOIN" and the second being "SHRDLU." This machine had no backspace, so whenever there was a mistake, typists would type SHRDLU to alert the proofreader that it needed to be corrected.

So "Shrdlu" as proofreader would be aware of this term as a mistake, and come across it daily. He is always making mistakes in the eyes of his mother: reading Treasure Island, running away from home, etc. and his mother is the master corrector/proofreader. Now he's killed her, though. He isn't aware of exactly WHY he has committed the "unspeakable crime" of killing her, but has been told by Dr. Amaranth the minister that it was his sinful nature and that once burning in the fires of hell, the mistake would be corrected. Of course this doesn't happen and Shrdlu goes to the Elysian Fields, which is far from the expected correction for the wrong. And when he searches for his mother in heaven and she isn't there, he's thrown even more. "Nothing is turning out as I expected." Not until he can realize that "they don't care/no one cares," can he truly be at peace.

There is one other character that's not named with a number, but it's more self explanatory, and that's the "Boss." The Boss is the universal alpha male authority figure that you can either be subservient to or attempt to beat (in this case, kill.) But the further up the chain of existence you go, there are more and more Bosses, each with more power than the next, leading up to the Boss of the Machine. (Originally, this was all different and there were facets of the Boss... sometimes he was called the Fixer, and in the final scene he was named as Mr. Charles. I'm assuming this has been pared down to its most simple and those names have been eliminated.)

Annnnyway, I know this is a long post, but as this is a fascinating and multi-layered work, you can always find out more about it the deeper you dig. Since you raised the question about named, Jaystarr, I thought I'd share!!

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 2:11pm

Thank you SO MUCH. This makes me appreciate the show even more. Wow.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 2:19pm

That was very informative and interesting rh 2008, is there also some hidden meaning in the name of the minister?
I was wondering about SHRDLU and how the hell it was pronounced, but you cleared that up for me.

Makes me wanna go out and buy the original play.
And I also want to see the musical again with those insights.

Thanks.
Updated On: 4/14/08 at 02:19 PM

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 2:25pm

As always, you have given a very insightful and picture-filled review. I really enjoyed it Thank you for taking the time to this for us.

[rb2008]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 2:36pm

Hmmm... well Dr. Amaranth is only mentioned in a few lines of the show by Shrdlu, but nonetheless the name was carefully chosen by Rice, I'm sure.

Amaranth is a flower that never "dies" in that its blooms don't wither and fall off, thus is "immortal" and "pure." Shrdlu calls Dr. Amaranth "one of the few pure spirits left on this earth," so the qualities of the flower mimic that and also provide for the "wisdom" that he gives Shrdlu about his sinful nature.

These passages about Amaranth are applicable to the story, especially the second which mentions the flower in the Elysian Fields by name:

Aesop's Fables (6th century BC):

A Rose and an Amaranth blossomed side by side in a garden,
and the Amaranth said to her neighbour,
"How I envy you your beauty and your sweet scent!
No wonder you are such a universal favourite."
But the Rose replied with a shade of sadness in her voice,
"Ah, my dear friend, I bloom but for a time:
my petals soon wither and fall, and then I die.
But your flowers never fade, even if they are cut;
for they are everlasting."

John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), iii. 353:

"Immortal amarant, a flower which once
In paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom; but soon for man's offence
To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows,
And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life,
And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven
Rolls o'er elysian flowers her amber stream:
With these that never fade the spirits elect
Bind their resplendent locks." *

* Note the picture of Daisy in the Elysian Fields earlier in this thread, and look at her hair.

Updated On: 4/14/08 at 02:36 PM

[Roscoe]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 2:39pm

Thanks for the information about Mr. Shrdlu's name, I knew it had something to do with the typewriter configuration.

There's a novel THE CIRCUS OF DR. LAO whose main character is named Etaoin Shrdlu.

[jaystarr]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 2:42pm

Thank you so much rb2008 for contributing to my thread and providing us a more detailed explanation of what is the play all about.....

******

Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect; it is a subjective art form. Expressionism is exhibited in many art forms, including painting, literature, theatre, film, architecture and music. The term often implies emotional angst. In a general sense, painters such as Matthias Grünewald and El Greco can be called expressionist, though in practice, the term is applied mainly to 20th century works.

^^^^

This is the definition of expressionism...

Actually.. I remember after the musical....Everyone has this look on their faces.. Wanna Be A Foster, Without A Trace, GMF & I - "What is that thing? that we just saw!!" Were basically did not talk MUCH the play bec. the fact that most of scenes were DISTORTED and presented in a EXPRESSIONIST form. I remember telling WBaF & WaT about the synthesizer bec. I was still absorbing of WHAT IS THAT THING I SAW? until probably yesterday & today (thanks for rb2008's insightful post) that ALL THESE THINGS just FALL into pieces....

I would probably recommend everyone to READ the play first and study a bit about the EXPRESSIONISM movement to fully appreciate the musical...

The Lightning was just EXCELLENT... I think rb2008 mentioned about the scene of Daisy fantazing about being kissed... you can really see how you enter her WORLD OF IMAGINATION (Day- Dream) by switching the lights- that "effect" .

The beauty about the musical is it builds and builds....

The beggining...which is a monotonous...operatic score with dark & claustrophobic scenery which shows the world of Mr. Zero...then the After Life scene...very colorful and the projections! oh my god! I cant really describe it by just posting...youlll just have to see how Mr. Zero died and how he enters the AFTERLIFE which I think they called...Elysian Fields (?)- not sure about it..

and the biggest suprise of all... the OPENING OF THE ENTIRE STAGE...which is inspired from Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS movie (another expressionist art form) and same era as the Elmer's play.....

*******
SIDE NOTES:

about Fritz Lang:

Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang (December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976) was an Austrian-German-American film director, screenwriter and occasional film producer. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the BFI.[1] His most famous films are the groundbreaking Metropolis (the world's most expensive silent film at the time of its release) and M, made before he moved to the United States.

*****************

MAGNIFICENT! The grand scheme of things....


I would DEFINITELY recommend this musical... you might not like it after you saw af bec. it requires DIGESTION..but the more & more you think about it.... the more YOU WILL LIKE IT!

J*




Updated On: 4/14/08 at 02:42 PM

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 2:43pm

Aha.
Great insight again rh, thanks.

[burntplains]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 4:12pm

JAYSTARR.. Where were your TDF Tickets in the Theatre?? MEZ?

[jaystarr]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 4:39pm

burntplains- Our tickets bec. were all sitting together are in the ORCHESTRA. You may wanna ask WBaF. I think he mentioned about closing the MEZZ- when we saw the show..I think I asked him, if there's a MEZZ or Balcony? bec. we are all sitting in the ORCHESTRA. The TDF tickets is approx. $25.00

*******

*************SPOILER***********



About the last scene: beautiful & magnificent HUGE sets.... I mean HUGE!!!

I think Takeshi took her design from Fritz Lang's expressionist 1928 movie "METROPOLIS"

Here's some scene from that expressionist movie--which is very similar to the "suprised" last scene:



Slaves in the world of machine





In Madonna's Express Yourself 1989 Video which won the MTV awards for Best Video was heavily influenced by Fritz Lang's expressionist movie...By looking at the video..you can tell how man is a slave of machine... the video director- DAVID FINCHER is a big fan of expressionism...most of his movies like SEVEN, FIGHT CLUB
& PANIC ROOM are filled with distorted images (expressionism)

Madonna's Express Yourself Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMt53HYkfY8

- you can see the heavy influence of Expressionism, filled with dark colors, one tone
monocromatic colors.....

- there's a BOSS there too..-symbol of male dominance/ total control.

- though I read that Madonna wanted some Art-Deco themes too to soften the video..but originally Fincher wanted it to be more darker...a take on expressionism.

J*

Updated On: 4/14/08 at 04:39 PM

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 6:02pm

According to Playbill.com, this is the Seating Chart for the Minetta Lane Theatre:



I'm almost positive that the Mezzanine is not in use for this production. I didn't see anybody going upstairs.

Thank you for the fascinating insights, rb2008 and Jay.

I have such a deeper appreciation and understanding for the piece now.

[mikem]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 10:07pm

Jay, another great report! Did you guys stage door?

Updated On: 4/14/08 at 10:07 PM

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 4/14/08 at 10:11pm

We didn't stage door.

I know that the actors go in and out through the main entrance of the theatre, though.

But we just left afterward.