Santa Monica Rep’s reading Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine

The Broad Stage presents Santa Monica Rep reading Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine, a bold satire that tells the story of a man struggling to maintain his status in a rapidly changing technological universe, at The Edye at The Broad Stage on Sunday, November 11 at 2:00pm. Tickets are on sale at www.thebroadstage.org or by calling 310-434-3200.
First produced in 1923, The Adding Machine adapted techniques from German Expressionist theatre to depict the dehumanization of man in the 20th century with themes that still resonate today. The hero, Mr. Zero is an everyman who can’t escape his fate: to be reborn again and again — as a slave. Worst of all, he’s not getting better with each life, he’s getting worse. Rice, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Street Scene, wrote The Adding Machine in just 17 days, creating a lasting masterpiece that is still a relevant depiction of modern society.
At its premiere The New York Times said that The Adding Machine is “revolutionary … the best example of the newer expressionism in the theatre that it has yet experienced … [it] comes in the language of a great art. For one mad moment all of the figures that [the hero] has ever added whirl madly in the Zero brain – and when he is again aware of the world he has stabbed his employer through the heart with a bill-file.”
Founded in 2010, Santa Monica Rep has produced nearly 40 play readings, productions and special
events, including co-presenting the SHINE Storytelling Salon, where hundreds of storytellers have shared
their personal triumphs and tribulations. Santa Monica Rep has served thousands of community members through their free Staged Readings at the Santa Monica Public Library and over two thousand public-school students through the Santa Monica Rep Reads collaborations with The Broad Stage.