The Adding Machine (play)
"The Adding Machine" is a seven-scene play written by Elmer Rice, first performed in the 1920s. The play delves into the anxieties surrounding technological advancements and their impact on the workplace, specifically through the story of Mr. Zero, a low-level accountant whose monotonous job becomes obsolete when he is replaced by an adding machine after twenty-five years of service. This dramatic shift ignites a profound crisis for Zero, leading him to commit an act of violence against his boss in a moment of rage. The narrative explores themes of identity, redundancy, and the dehumanizing aspects of modern work life, ultimately portraying Zero's futile search for meaning in both life and the afterlife.
The play is recognized for its break from traditional American theater, introducing more experimental forms of modernist drama. With its combination of European expressionism and realism, "The Adding Machine" reflects the social and intellectual currents of the 1920s, marking a significant evolution in American theatrical expression. Rice's work, alongside contemporaries like Eugene O'Neill, contributed to the emergence of serious drama that addressed profound literary and philosophical questions rather than simply providing entertainment. This play remains a poignant examination of the struggles of the individual in an increasingly mechanized world.
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Subject Terms
The Adding Machine (play)
Identification: Play about the emptiness of modern industrial life
Author: Elmer Rice
Date: 1923
During the 1920s, changes in technology and industry sparked anxieties about the role of the individual in the workplace. The Adding Machine explored this concept, raising the issues faced by a man whose job has become redundant—replaced by a machine. The Adding Machine marked a significant break from the traditions of earlier American theater and brought more experimental modernist drama to the American stage.
The Adding Machine is a seven-scene play that centers on a man named Mr. Zero, a low-level accountant in a department store who methodically totals numbers each day. He lives with a dissatisfied and nagging wife who resents their meager circumstances, has friends identified only by numbers, and yearns for excitement or advancement. When he is fired and replaced by an adding machine after twenty-five years of service, Zero is overcome by an uncharacteristic surge of anger and murders his boss. He is convicted of the crime by a jury of his nameless friends and is executed.
Zero goes on to wander through the afterlife in search of meaning, but when he meets a former colleague, Daisy Diana Dorothea Devore, who had killed herself at the news of his execution, he rejects her offer of love and consolation. Instead, he returns to the mechanical work of number-crunching, unable to stop himself. As his name suggests, Zero is an empty drone who knows nothing but work and routine. In the afterlife, he is told that he has been a slave in every life he has lived, and his fate is inescapable. At the end of The Adding Machine, Zero is reincarnated as a drone once more.
Impact
Rice emerged as a major talent in the 1920s with the production of The Adding Machine. Along with the works of fellow playwrights Eugene O’Neill and Clifford Odets, Rice’s playsignaled a turn in American theater toward serious drama. While many earlier American plays served purely to entertain or display the talents of the actors rather than investigate serious literary or philosophical themes, The Adding Machine, as a product of the combined influences of European expressionism and realism, explored a timely topic through an experimental lens. In this way, The Adding Machine and plays like it exemplified the social and intellectual ferment of the 1920s and the decade’s break with tradition in arts and culture.
Bibliography
Durham, Frank. Elmer Rice. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1970.
Hogan, Robert Goode. The Independence of Elmer Rice. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965.
Vanden Heuvel, Michael. Elmer Rice: A Research and Production Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996.