Machinal (Fells Point Corner)
I did it. Woman cries.
A special edition from The Bad Oracle (Annie Montone).
Things never go well for the Seers, those who have received the blessing (curse?) of an internal eye that is open all the time. While the rest of us are vacuuming the rug, sending the email, picking up the children, the Seers are watching the planets spin, staring behind the veil, horrified by How It Really Works. The Young Woman of Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal, currently up at Fells Point Corner Theatre, is certainly a Seer, and it’s implied that it’s rather lucky for society that they’re rare, because if they weren’t, we’d have a lot less vacuuming and a lot more screaming.
Written in 1928 and based on a sensationalized true crime, Machinal is essentially the story of a woman’s craving for agency in a world where it is categorically denied, crushed out of her by The Way Things Are. If this seems familiar, well, a lot has happened since 1928, and these themes aren’t exactly unexplored. Capitalism grinds. Patriarchy kills. The world is a Vampire. It is to the credit of director Deirdre McCallister, a fantastic cast lead by an inspired Autumn Koehnlein, and a truly exceptional level of design, that the production feels fresh, with a lot of static, a lot of chewiness to it.
McCallister is a director that is attracted to layers, but thankfully here, layered doesn’t necessarily mean leaden. She’s good all the way down, from clever staging (I especially loved a moment where Young Woman and her husband, a Mr. “Brace Up and Face Things” sturdily and perceptively played by Will Beckstrom, are talking to one another seated back-to-back, and another where Young Woman is trapped into the stage by file cabinets doubling as prison bars) to a very careful aesthetic. Her handling of choral elements (with movement coaching by Jarod Hanson) that could come across as heavy handed, is insidiously light, a courtroom full of people literally hissing at Young Woman might be a leaky radiator…or an angry mob.
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McCallister is aided by a fantastic Autumn Koehnlein as Young Woman (her name is Helen, but I don’t think anyone says it until after the crime that will define the rest of her short life). This is a role that easily gets too high, shrill and shrieking, but Koehnlein holds it to a more realistic level. Her sad eyes peering out from under her retro hairdo speak volumes when her voice is gone. The show sets Helen up as a truly tragic figure, but one of Koehnlein’s strengths is that she plays her a bit, well, chilly. We feel for her, at points intensely, but we don’t really like her, if we’re honest. It’s the dichotomy between empathy and alienation that makes the interpretation impressive, provocative. There’s a monologue near the middle, the “golden stairs” piece, where Koehnlein will make the hair raise on the back of your neck; it’s unhinged, beautiful, like a wild animal snarling and whimpering in the back of a dirty circus.
Standing out amid a supportive ensemble are Matthew Lindsay Payne, a veteran of the Baltimore small theater scene, who turns in welcome moments of melancholy levity as Helen’s lover, and Melissa Banister as her grating, leeching mother/cheerfully oblivious maternity nurse. Adrian Bagaric is a new face for me, one I’ll be watching, his deadpan doctor (hilariously and constantly smoking) and incredulous judge go a long way to establish male authority just low-level nagging, like a beeping smoke alarm. Brooke Kemph is sparkly as a modern-girl-flapper-type, her fluid vigor a nice foil to Koehnlein’s Helen’s stiff awkwardness.
As Batman would be nothing without the drama of Gotham City, it is the production design that takes this show from good to great, and I fucking mean it. This is one of the most beautiful designs I have seen from the small stage in this town for a long time. Costumes from Karen Saar, with a palette of memo pads and typewriter cases, are on-point, definitively 1920s yet creepy and ageless, echoing the terrifyingly cyclic nature of what’s going on. Justin Nepomuceno’s set brings a literality that I usually hate but somehow absolutely love here, the endless file cabinets that serve as everything from a bureau to a sink, the stark tiles on the floor, so, so many cages. Lights from Jaedyn Arrington just paint the space from the pink wash of a cupid’s den to the dazzling florescent of a jail cell, and sound from Ben Craig is buzzy drone interspersed with jazzy ditties to disorienting effect. I especially liked projections orchestrated by Chris Uehlinger, who has established himself as a one-of-a-kind talent, here technically streamlining a collaborative effort with heavy lifting from Benni Rose, who directed the pitch perfectly weird in-play movie scenes. Jerky old silent films and title cards blend together and heighten the sense that everything is juuuust that much out of synch. I want to see the show again to catch all the allusions going on in the background from Alice in Wonderland to Joan of Arc.
Machinal is a barn burner of a production, a high-water mark for Fells Point Corner Theatre that blows the hinges off the new season. With strength in directorial specificity, honed performance, and stage artistry that is leagues beyond what you’d expect from the typical small scene, it sets a steep bar for what’s to come. Well done.
Machinal, Fells Point Corner Theatre, up September 5th — 29th.
Correction: This article has been edited since the time of publication to credit Benni Rose, and to better articulate the collaborative nature of the projection work in the show.
