The Adding Machine by Long Cloud Youth Theatre

The Adding Machine by Long Cloud Youth Theatre

After two and a half years as Artistic Director of Long Cloud Youth Theatre, Stella Reid is preparing to make her last show with the company this May.

Taking influence from films like Dogville, Brazil and the work of Haruki Murakami, Long Cloud Youth Theatre presents The Adding Machine, an adaptation of the 1923 play by Elmer Rice about the dehumanising effects of mass culture. The play speaks to youth culture’s growing interest in the development of technology and our society of the screen.

The Adding Machine centres on Zero, a little cog with big dreams. Today he watches the clock for his big meeting with his Boss. After 25 years in the same job, he figures things must add up to a promotion.

Mrs. Zero is expecting company tonight. She will sit Mr. and Mrs. Three at opposite ends of the table. Mrs. One is asking Mr. One where he was last night and EVERYONE is talking about the Sevens’ divorce.

But the edge of town is beginning to reduce in value. The fabric of the city limits is beginning to fray.

There is a deserted house on the periphery: Mrs. Zero sometimes scalds Mr.

Zero for staring at it. “She” lives there. The courthouse gave her six months, but most of the townspeople agree she should have got six years.

In a graveyard near the courthouse is Shrdlu, whom no one has ever met.

Wearing newspaper clothes, she waits to hear how she will be punished for her crimes.

18 actors spill onto the Whitireia stage to create the world of this epic narrative that occupies a shadowland somewhere between surrealism, science fiction and silent film.

6th-12th May, 7:30 PM
Separate schools showing, for details email longcloudyouththeatre@gmail.com WHITIREIA THEATRE, 25- 27 Vivian St, Wellington $18/$14 | BOOKINGS PHONE 04 238 6225 or ONLINE www.thetheatre.co.nz

ENDS

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