Editing The Adding Machine

{{Short description|1923 play by Elmer Rice}}
{{Other uses|Adding machine (disambiguation)}}
{{Italic title}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2023}}
'''''The Adding Machine''''' is a 1923 [[Play (theatre)|play]] by [[Elmer Rice]]; it has been called "... a landmark of American [[Expressionism]], reflecting the growing interest in this highly subjective and nonrealistic form of modern drama."<ref>{{cite book |last=Beard |first=M. Toten |chapter=Elmer Rice |title=The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Volume 2 |editor1-last= Cody |editor1-first=Gabrielle H. |editor2-last=Sprinchorn |editor2-first=Evert |publisher=Columbia University |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-231-14424-7 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aQqOKWmjdQUC&pg=PA1137}}</ref>

==Plot==
The author of this play takes us through Mr. Zero’s trial, execution, excursion, and arrest going into the afterlife. During the whole series of this episodic journey, Mr. Zero is surprisingly oblivious to his deepest needs, wants, and desires. The story focuses on Mr. Zero, an accountant at a large, faceless company.  After 25 years at his job, he discovers that he will be replaced by an adding machine.  In anger and pain, he snaps and kills his boss. Mr. Zero is then tried for murder, found guilty, and hanged.  He wakes up in a heaven-like setting known as the "[[Elysium|Elysian Fields]]." Mr. Zero meets a man named Shrdlu, then begins to operate an adding machine until Lieutenant Charles, the boss of the Elysian Fields, comes to tell Zero that he is a waste of space and his soul is going to be sent back to Earth to be reused. The play ends with Zero following a very attractive girl named Hope off-stage.

==Success==
Though the play has been critically regarded as a classic, it ran for just two months on Broadway for 72 performances in 1923. It has never been revived.

The play was an influence on the [[Tennessee Williams]] play ''[[Stairs to the Roof]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2001/oct/12/theatre.artsfeatures1|title=Theatre review: Stairs to the Roof|first=Michael|last=Billington|date=October 11, 2001|work=The Guardian}}</ref> Years later, it was adapted into a [[The Adding Machine (film)|1969 film]] of the same name, written and directed by Jerome Epstein and starring [[Milo O'Shea]], [[Phyllis Diller]], [[Billie Whitelaw]] and [[Sydney Chaplin (American actor)|Sydney Chaplin]].{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

In 1989, Chicago's Hystopolis Productions adapted Rice's play for puppets;<ref>{{cite web |last=Bowen |first=Joseph |title=The Adding Machine: American business and the advent of technology. |date=July 19, 2003 |url=http://centerstage.net/theatre/articles/addingmachhys.html |work=Centerstage |accessdate=February 6, 2011}} Review of the Hystopolis production.</ref> the production was hailed for its visual design.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/chicagos-other-puppet-theater/Content?oid=912567|title=Chicago's Other Puppet Theater|first=Jack|last=Helbig|website=Chicago Reader|date=July 10, 2003 }}</ref> In September 1992, this production went on to be featured at the First International Festival of Puppet Theater presented at [[The Public Theater]] in New York which was a co-production of [[Joseph Papp]] and the [[Jim Henson Foundation]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/16/theater/theater-in-review-660092.html|title=Theater in Review|first=Mel|last=Gussow|work=The New York Times |date=September 16, 1992}}</ref> ''The Adding Machine'' remains part of Hystopolis' professional repertoire.{{Citation needed|date=February 2011}}

==Musical adaptation==
{{main|Adding Machine (musical)}}
In 2007, the play was adapted into a musical entitled ''[[Adding Machine (musical)|Adding Machine]]'' with a score by Joshua Schmidt and a book by Jason Loewith and Schmidt.  The musical debuted in [[Illinois]] at the Next Theatre Company in 2007.  It then opened [[Off-Broadway]] at the Minetta Lane Theatre on February 25, 2008, after previews that started on February 8. In September 2016 the musical was produced at the Finborough Theatre in London England.<ref>{{cite news |last=Jones |first=Kenneth |url=http://www.playbill.com/news/article/114906.html |work=Playbill |date=February 8, 2008 |title=''Adding Machine'', a Hit Musical in Chicago, Bows in NYC Feb. 8 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080417181858/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/114906.html |archivedate=April 17, 2008 }}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite journal |last=Manus |first=Willard |date=July 28, 1999 |url=http://www.playbill.com/news/article/46911.html |title='Adding Machine' Marks 76th Birthday at Heliotrope, July 29 |journal=Playbill}}

==External links==
*{{ibdb title|id=9220|title=The Adding Machine}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adding Machine, The}}
[[Category:1923 plays]]
[[Category:Plays by Elmer Rice]]
[[Category:Broadway plays]]
[[Category:Expressionist plays]]