The Adding Machine
by Elmer Rice

Name: The Adding Machine
Brand: Elmer Rice
SKU: 9780573605086
Rating: 3.58 (72 reviews)

The Adding Machine Book Cover — The Adding Machine Cover

Highlights

Female

Male

120 mins Ensemble Cast Unit Set/Multiple Settings

Awards & Recognition

Pulitzer Prize

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Elmer Rice.

Synopsis

Mr. Zero is an accountant at a large, faceless company.

After twenty-five years at his job, he discovers that he will be replaced by an adding machine.

In anger and pain, he snaps and kills his boss.

Mr. Zero is then tried for murder, found guilty, and hanged, only to wake up in a heaven-like setting known as the "Elysian Fields."

Mr. Zero then begins to operate an adding machine until the boss of the Elysian Fields tells Zero that he is a waste of space and his soul is going to be sent back to Earth to be reused.

The play ends with Zero following a very attractive girl named Hope offstage.

During the whole series of this episodic journey, Mr. Zero is surprisingly oblivious to his deepest needs, wants, and desires.

Press Reviews

"Elmer Rice's 1923 expressionist satire seems abrasively modern in its attack on the dehumanising effect of industrial capitalism [...] Rice's play has left its impact on a wide variety of works, from Chaplin's Modern Times to Tony Kushner's Angels in America. But what is striking is the bilious inclusiveness of its attack on a machine-driven society that not only exploits its workers, but robs them of their souls."
— The Guardian

Characters

Character	Gender	Age	Description
ZEROMRS. ZERODAISY DEVORETHE BOSSMR. ONEMRS. ONEMR. TWOMRS. TWOMR. THREEMRS. THREEMR. FOURMRS. FOURMR. FIVEMRS. FIVEMR. SIXMRS. SIXPOLICEMANJUDY O'GRADYYOUNG MANSHRDLUA HEADLT. CHARLESJOE	female	—	—