Robert M. (shotokanchef) reviewed Elmer Rice: Three Plays : The Adding Machine, Street Scene and Dream Girl on + 813 more book reviews
Street Scene
Its a brutally hot day in the 1923 New York slums. The whole tenement is talking about the weather. Well, that and about some illicit affairs going on in the building: real or imagined. Sort of a Pot-Bouille. They are all waiting for something to happen. I see traces of this work in later plays. I keep waiting for someone to yell Stella. Frank Maurrant (one of the key players) is part Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire and part Eddie Carbone in A View From the Bridge. The climax is even reminiscent of Slaughter On Tenth Avenue. Not much to the setmerely the exterior of an apartment buildingbut long on cast: twenty-five major roles and eighteen minor ones.
The Adding Machine
Dont bother! I find it difficult to accept that even an academic could like, let along read, this tripe. But, I suppose the symbolism of naming the characters Mr. and Mrs. Zero through Six gives rise to the title, or vice versa. And, of course, the adding machine, that futuristic automation that displaces workers, is symbolic, as is Vonneguts Player Piano. Anyway, death to the capitalist!
Dream Girl
An enticing title, but dont get the wrong picture; shes not that kind of a Dream Girl. Loaded with biting sarcasm, this is my kind of play! Sort of Moss Hart and Noel Coward meet Mel Brooks and Neil Simon. Also, what we have here is several plays within the play; hence the title. Of course, as in Street Scene his heroine is involved, yet not as involved, with several men: two of them married. Will she ride off into the sunset with one of them? Our heroine is also probably an ancestor of Walter Mitty. Youll snicker as you peruse this lighthearted look at courtship.
Its a brutally hot day in the 1923 New York slums. The whole tenement is talking about the weather. Well, that and about some illicit affairs going on in the building: real or imagined. Sort of a Pot-Bouille. They are all waiting for something to happen. I see traces of this work in later plays. I keep waiting for someone to yell Stella. Frank Maurrant (one of the key players) is part Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire and part Eddie Carbone in A View From the Bridge. The climax is even reminiscent of Slaughter On Tenth Avenue. Not much to the setmerely the exterior of an apartment buildingbut long on cast: twenty-five major roles and eighteen minor ones.
The Adding Machine
Dont bother! I find it difficult to accept that even an academic could like, let along read, this tripe. But, I suppose the symbolism of naming the characters Mr. and Mrs. Zero through Six gives rise to the title, or vice versa. And, of course, the adding machine, that futuristic automation that displaces workers, is symbolic, as is Vonneguts Player Piano. Anyway, death to the capitalist!
Dream Girl
An enticing title, but dont get the wrong picture; shes not that kind of a Dream Girl. Loaded with biting sarcasm, this is my kind of play! Sort of Moss Hart and Noel Coward meet Mel Brooks and Neil Simon. Also, what we have here is several plays within the play; hence the title. Of course, as in Street Scene his heroine is involved, yet not as involved, with several men: two of them married. Will she ride off into the sunset with one of them? Our heroine is also probably an ancestor of Walter Mitty. Youll snicker as you peruse this lighthearted look at courtship.
