Review: BIG MACHINE at The Marcelle

The headlining production of The St. Louis Fringe Festival opened this weekend at The Marcelle in the Grand Center Arts District. Fly North Theatricals is presenting the world premiere of Colin Healy’s new musical BIG MACHINE. Directed by Fly North’s Bradley Rohlf, BIG MACHINE tells a story, based on actual events, of 1920’s corporate greed during the industrial revolution. 

BIG MACHINE is an early entrant amid a surge of new musicals and plays that are opening in St. Louis. Most of the new plays and musicals are staged in small venues, with small casts, minimal set design and pre-recorded music tracks. Big Machine is an exception. It is a large, full-scale musical production.  

Even though BIG MACHINE is being staged in a small theater, it has the look and sound of a big budget musical. Rohlf and Healey have created a sizeable production with a live orchestra playing a fully orchestrated score, intricate choreography, sleek costumes, and complex set, lighting, and sound designs.  

Healy’s robust orchestrations create sound with layered texture. He serves as conductor and plays keyboard and guitar. He is supported splendidly by his 9-piece band that includes strings, reeds, bass and percussion. As music director, he has the actors well prepared vocally and some of the large chorus numbers create impressive vocal impact.  

Rohlf’s blocking and Jordan Wood’s Choreography uses the full expanse of the performance area with inspired movement that considers time, energy, space, and relationship to storytelling. Caleb Long’s oversized factory set moves with the actors. The set’s versatility allows for quick transitions from scene-to-scene. It is a stellar design. Tony Anselmo's lighting, Phillip Evans' sound design, and Colin Healy's sound effects adds significantly to the visual and auditory aspects of the storytelling. The actors are easily heard with balanced sound from their headset lavalier microphones, which isn’t always the case in the smaller venues. 

Eileen Engel’s impressive costume designs look rich with interesting lines and exceptional construction. The costumes for Midgely, the historical characters, the dancing ears of corn, and the factory workers were plush, sumptuous, and illustrated her strong design skills.  

The actors fully commit to their characters and Rohlf elicited strong performances from his 14-actor company. Al Bastin (Thomas Midgely, Jr.), Mack Holtman (Ethyl), Christopher Plotts (Methuselah), Parker Miller (Ernest), and Miliah Strawbridge (Grace) created memorable characters through honest and vulnerable portrayals. The remainder of the company, Lili Sheley, Corrinna Redford, Michael Reitano, Langston Casey, Carly Fock, Dereis Lambert, Jordan Woods, Chelsie Johnson, and Emma Giltner did exceptional work covering multiple roles and performing as the chorus on the larger musical numbers.  

The large cast is led by Al Bastin as Thomas Midgley, Jr., the General Motors (GM) chemical engineer who created leaded gasoline that was branded as Ethyl. Healy’s BIG MACHINE examines Midgely’s work, his insistence that leaded gasoline was safe, the working conditions of the Midwestern plant where the fuel was being produced, and the effects the work had on the lives of factory workers.  

Healy’s book is both smart and complex. It contains numerous subplots that complicate and slow the rhythm of the storytelling. In addition to the Midgley storyline, there are subplots about factory conditions, frontline workers attempting to unionize, middle management, workplace affairs, alcoholism, workplace drinking, industrial accidents, corporate liability, grieving the loss of a spouse, parenting as a single dad, factory riots, and that isn’t an exhaustive list.  

The audience needed both more, and less, from Healy’s book. More details about Midgley’s century old work could improve the audience’s engagement with the story, and fewer subplots about the supporting characters would streamline the narrative. Midgley’s story isn’t common knowledge and that makes the book smarter than the audience. It was difficult to identify the protagonist(s). The unknown details about Midgley’s career and the quantity of subplots made the story slow and hard to follow. It left the audience a bit lost. 

Fly North Theatrical’s production of BIG MACHINE has a polished and professional look. The cast has strong acting talent. They create memorable characters and deliver better-than-average vocal performances. Credit Rohlf’s direction and Healy’s music direction for the cast’s preparation. The technical elements are all first rate, especially Long and Engel’s expensive looking set and costume designs, and Woods intricate choreography. The narrative was a bit tedious, but it did inspired reading following the show to learn more about Midgley, his work, and the decisions that were made to put profits ahead of consumer safety.  

BIG MACHINE continues at The Marcelle through August 18th as part of the St. Louis Fringe Festival. Tickets can be purchased by clicking the link below.  

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