Last Chance to See The Adding Machine at ACT

Hurry! Hurry! This weekend is your last chance to see The Adding Machine at ACT Theatre (runs Thurs–Sat, 8pm), and this is most definitely a show not to be missed. The play (originally written in 1923 by Elmer Rice) is revivified beautifully by the New Century Theatre Company—a recently formed company comprised of established and esteemed local actors determined to breathe new life into Seattle’s theater scene. If this first show is any indication, they are already well on their way to doing so.

Not a terribly happy play, the story compels nonetheless by raising questions about paths not taken and days unseized. But it’s not all bleak—there’s plenty of humor here too, as Mr. Zero’s life comes unwound after he’s fired from the accounting job he’s held for 25 years (replaced by a newfangled adding machine). The actors are unquestionably skilled, but also captivating are the stark lighting and stage sets—the simplicity of which are precisely what keeps audiences intrigued. Performers, who in the beginning are dressed as if in a black-and-white movie, wheel their own lighting around the sparse stage, and work in bursts of dialogue interspersed with choreographed, chunky movements (such as the machine-like drills of the accountants in the office pool). How exciting that an 85-year-old play can feel so relevant and uncanny. How lucky we are to have this chance to see it.