The Life Machine Play Analysis

Machinal was the first USF play I saw, and so I did not know exactly what to expect from a college-level performance. The first thing that stood out to me was the small, intimate theater itself. I had wrongly assumed this play was going to be on a stage in a large auditorium that holds hundreds of people. Instead, I was able to sit right in front and see all the minute details. I had previously been to a high school play that had a similar small audience, but for that play I sat in the back and thus the experience wasn’t as interesting as this one. Here, I could clearly see all the facial expressions of the actors and also felt like I was almost in the play itself, especially when the actors made direct eye contact during the play. At one point one of the characters came and sat next to me in a seat that was set aside for her. The effect of this style of play is that the fourth wall becomes more flexible, integrating the audience and the performers. Due to the lack of that boundary, all the events and emotions seemed even more real than they do in a traditional play where I would be sitting 20 rows away from the elevated stage.
One interesting fact about the play that I later learned is that the play was called The Life Machine when it premiered in England. This title seems to imply that the main character’s life is one of a machine rather than …show more content…
She often spoke of how she felt she could not breathe and she wanted to get away from her home and go anywhere else. While the same basic meaning could have been conveyed by merely saying she felt suffocated, the actress went beyond that and truly demonstrated how she felt. I had forgotten to a certain extent that this sort of thing is what sets plays apart from the other forms of art. The physical manifestation of feeling stifled was a way to reflect the main character’s feelings towards her marriage and