Review: MACHINAL and THE BEE'S KNEES at Red Sandcastle/The Theatre Centre

If the 2020s have occasionally uncomfortably reminded you of the 1920s, you’re not alone. Two Toronto theatre companies are currently using work from and about that turbulent decade to comment on present issues. At the Red Sandcastle, The Flare Productions presents Sophie Treadwell’s seminal work of feminist and Expressionist theatre, MACHINAL, a 1928 play very loosely based on the real-life story of Ruth Snyder, executed at Sing Sing Prison for the murder of her husband. At the Theatre Centre, Tall Poppy Productions presents a new work written and directed by Judy Reynolds, THE BEE’S KNEES, a fictional tale of one of the first women to run for Canadian parliament in the early 1920s.

Aesthetically, the two shows couldn’t be more different; MACHINAL, appropriately, is gray, gloomy, and minimalist, while THE BEES KNEES celebrates Jazz Age-era fashions with Paul and Mathew Gyulay’s elaborate set pieces ranging from a speakeasy to a deconstructed Tin Lizzy. MACHINAL speaks to the feeling of being trapped by the never-ending rituals and work of modernity, compounded by the strictures of gender that require women to constantly submit, while THE BEE’S KNEES offers a hopeful view, looking to a future where women can chart their own course and create a better tomorrow. While election results south of the border may currently make MACHINAL’s view seem more realistic, both shows paint an intriguing picture of a time of change that still reverberates today.

Director Michelle Soicher’s MACHINAL (French for “automatic” or “mechanical”) works well within the confines of the Red Sandcastle, the somewhat claustrophobic space highlighting the predicament of the main character and leaving everyone in close quarters. True to the play’s title, the world it presents is mechanical, stylized, and oppressive, young adult Helen the only loose cog in a machine designed to keep turning and crushing its nameless inhabitants. Derided for being constantly late to work by her fellow employees, Helen dreads her older boss’ summons, knowing he will praise her dainty hands and ask for them in marriage. With the crush of transit and work becoming overwhelming and with Helen the only support for her nagging mother, she feels she has little choice but to accept.

The stylization of MACHINAL, particularly in the courtroom and office scenes, is crucial to the success of the work and the Expressionist movement it typifies. Soicher’s cast is well on the way to achieving this, but the 105-minute one-act’s script is unforgiving and any hesitation or stumble pulls down the pace. As well, simple set changes using little other than gray cubes, curtains and a mantel have clearly been thought through with impressive care and polish to add ambiance (designer Carlyn Rahusaar-Routledge), yet still briefly deflate a production that should run at speed. Pushing the pace further would more effectively highlight the stark text and the pained repetition of lines and movements that contribute to Helen’s suffocation.

As Helen, Azaria Shams exhibits a deer-in-the-headlights quality, halfway between detached and luminous, that occasionally makes her seem otherworldly. Hubby Joseph Brown is effectively overbearing and mundanely unpleasant without feeling unrealistic, and there are moments where you might catch yourself wondering why Helen can’t just capitulate and give him what he wants. That’s where MACHINAL snaps the trap shut, making one ponder just how often women give in to placation and people-pleasing just to make others comfortable.

A scene where Helen briefly finds joy and respite from her situation provides a moving change in tone, the atmosphere reminiscent of Tennessee Williams with gauzy white curtains and tentative filaments of hope forming a backdrop as Helen clings to a rough-edged but kind paramour (Matthew Nadeau). Aurora McClennan also distinguishes herself, first as a blousy secretary and then as doddering legal counsel to Helen, effectively capturing the period’s tone and injecting energy into Treadwell’s depressing but trenchant script.

Pacing is also an issue in THE BEE’S KNEES, a gentle, well-plotted and thoughtful work that feels like an earnest CBC version of Broadway hit Suffs. The relevance and timeliness of its subject matter cannot be denied, though it is hampered by the fact that, while that musical was based on real, named people with documented achievements, this play is an entirely fictional story. Reynolds’ play, therefore, rides or dies on how much we care about its characters.

Luckily, Reynolds has created a number of intriguing, three-dimensional figures, particularly in her central pair of sisters who start a campaign for MP. Scrappy young Bernie McKay (Madeline Elliott Kennedy), barely 21, convinces her older sister Dolores Cole (Shannon Pitre), a former nurse, suffragist, and marketable war widow, to run against incumbent Jerry Fields (Michael Pollard), a condescending political warhorse with underhanded tactics who’s only stopped from twirling his mustache by the fact that he shaves it sometime during the first act. Kennedy and Pitre balance each other well, Bernie providing spin, while pragmatic but passionate Dolores chafes under having to be the Temperance candidate and finds love with Dr. Edwin Becker (Kenzie Delo), who has realistically mixed feelings about her candidacy while treating her ailing mother (Françoise Balthazar), a former suffragist rendered almost comatose by a virus.

The 2.5-hour show fairly bursts with potential. The main characters are memorable, flawed, and complex, their trials meticulously crafted and supported by attractive costumes (Arianna Lilith Moodie) and fun moments such as a polar bear swim complete with bathing suit hem inspector, New Year’s at a speakeasy, a round of golf, and delightfully frustrating radio “debates” between a chauvinist blowhard host (Brandon Knox) and increasingly frustrated gossip columnist Miss Madge (also Balthazar). With all the business of changing scenes and well-meaning exposition in the first act, though, it might be prudent to cut some extraneous characters, even if it means reassigning their plot points, to prevent lag.

Though the timeline could still use clarification, the play takes off in a satisfying way when it picks up the pace in its second act, where there’s less soapboxing and more character development and intrigue. Jamillah Ross gives a terrific performance as Rita Blue, the mistress of both a speakeasy and the supposedly traditionalist incumbent politician, providing a solid counterpoint to an otherwise very white suffrage narrative.

In fact, she’s such an interesting character that it’s unfortunate we don’t see more of her story, which could be used as a more effective framing device; the show hasn’t fully decided on a consistent narrator, which means it’s not clear whose eyes we’re seeing the story through and why that journey gets highlighted. Ross also uses her glorious voice to sing all of the full Jazz Age-inspired songs. Wonderful as the performance is, the jazz music works better as backing and transitional music, because the action comes to a standstill during the numbers. Even the stirring final tune feels like it’s happening after the show’s natural endpoint, while we’re waiting to clap.

Curiously, Reynolds’ decision at a pivotal moment to have a cast member read out a list of historical current suffragists and elected female politicians worldwide, passing through Kim Campbell and ending on Kamala Harris, struck me as more depressing than the conclusion of MACHINAL, rather than providing the hope the show craves. I have the feeling that the experience would be very different were the United States about to inaugurate its first female president. Adding to that despair is that, while the audience hands in marked ballots at intermission, our votes have no actual bearing on the end of the piece.

However, the disappointing reality and cyclical nature of life and social movements only serve to make the show feel achingly relevant. More importantly, THE BEE’S KNEES focuses on the process, rather than the end result, and that’s where it shines; win or lose, it says, any action is a step towards the future. It matters less whether Dolores Cole is real or not when the focus is on the work, not any individual moment.

It’s work that mattered in 1928, and it’s work that matters now.

Photo of Rachel Nkoto Belinga, Françoise Balthazar, Shannon Pitre and Madeline Elliott Kennedy by Marlowe Andreyko

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