Machinal
Ustinov Studio Bath

IF ever a play’s production demonstrates that theatrical style has as much, if not more power to communicate as its plot, then Richard Jones’s presentation of Sophie Treadwell’s 1920s expressionist treatment of a notorious US murder case proves the point.

In 1927 Ruth Snyder had the distinction of being the first woman to have been photographed executed in the electric chair. This may have been as a result of the notoriety of her trial for the murder of her husband that was nation-wide in the US. The journalist, playwright and feminist activist Treadwell witnessed that trial and in response wrote Machinal, meaning mechanical, as a portrayal of a woman, desperately trapped in a macho-stifling society.

If this familiar storyline had been dressed in a naturalistic retelling it might have been no more than interesting. However, here the stripped-down power of its setting and stark characterisation, coupled with superb acting, created an intensity that made the increasing anguish of the unnamed “young woman” (expressionism works to create universal rather than personal recognition) brings the action almost too close for audience comfort.

From subway, office, home, and maternity ward, a 12-strong cast move around a claustrophobic space with robotic precision and staccato exchanges as the protagonist traces her path to self and social destruction. A central scene provides a fleeting and illusory freedom from the prison of marriage and trial to the ultimate “freedom” of execution.

With her tour de force performance, Rosie Sheehy conveys the impotence of a woman who demands a meaning to her mechanistic life, responding with hysterical bouts of neurasthenia.

Only recently rediscovered, when Treadwell’s century-old play was written, it spoke to an age only waking up to the dehumanising forces emerging in society. It now speaks with a menacing contemporary voice to our world as it toys blindly with AI, even hoping it may be our saviour.

It also has a clarity of purpose, style and conviction missing from most of the present-day theatre fare.

Runs until November 18. Box office 01225 448844, theatreroyal.org.uk