Adding Machine, The

Adding Machine, The (1923), a tragedy by Elmer Rice. [Garrick Theatre, 72 perf.] On the 25th anniversary of his employment by the Firm, Mr. Zero ( Dudley Digges) is told by the Boss ( Irving Dillon) that modern adding machines have replaced him. In a blind fury, Mr. Zero kills his employer. Mr. Zero's harridan wife, Mrs. Zero ( Helen Westley), offers him no consolation as he is tried and then executed. After death Mr. Zero haunts a graveyard and the Elysian Fields, rejecting the company of those who would lure him from his narrow but purposeful ways. His only comforter becomes Daisy Diana Dorothea Devore ( Margaret Wycherly), his onetime co‐worker, who has killed herself to be with him. In heaven, Mr. Zero briefly finds satisfaction operating a gigantic adding machine, until he is ordered to return to Earth. He refuses to go back until he learns that he has been doing just that for many incarnations and will continue to do so until he is a totally crushed soul doomed to “sit in the gallery of a coal mine and operate the super‐hyper‐adding machine with the great toe of his right foot.” Many of New York's most perceptive critics agreed with John Corbin, who wrote that the Theatre Guild's production of The Adding Machine was “the best and fairest example of the newer expressionism in the theatre, that it has yet experienced.” Along with a fine cast and the superb direction of Philip Moeller, the original production offered Lee Simonson's imaginative sets. The bars and railings in the courtroom set were distorted, Mr. Zero's fury was suggested by large numbers whirling across the stage, and in heaven there was that huge adding machine, which Mr. Zero could walk on. This last piece nearly prevented the show from being seen, when an internal union disagreement erupted over whether it was a set or a prop. For all its excellence, The Adding Machine had only a modest Broadway run, but it remained popular for years with college and experimental theatres and established Rice as a major playwright.