Adding Machine: A Musical

"Adding Machine: A Musical" is a gem of a little musical whose themes are all too current to us. Adapting the 1923 American expressionist play "The Adding Machine," the musical was well lauded when it opened Off-Broadway in 2008 directed by David Cromer (right before his major breakout as the director and Stage Manager in "Our Town").

Dark as the subject matter seems to our modern eyes, the play's popularity in the U.S. provided entry for many different kinds of Expressionist art to seek American audiences after they had been captivated by the story of Mr. and Mrs. Zero, whose names portend the ultimate insignificance of their lives.

Mr. Zero (Patrick Du Laney) isn't so much an anti-hero as a non-hero, and "Adding Machine" finds him on the worst day of his life: After 25 years at his company, he is unceremoniously fired when he expects to be getting a promotion, because of the boss' (Andres Enriquez) decision to replace him with, you guessed it, an adding machine.

Mr. Zero, already stressed from the constant nagging of his wife (Kelli Harrington), gets a little impulsive and finds himself in prison, trying to explain to a very uninterested warden why he really only wanted to get back to work after all. Along the way he has a chance encounter with Daisy (Neala Barron), a coworker he had pined for all these years and the one most torn up at first about his developments.

The new Chicago production of "Adding Machine" replicates much of the Off-Broadway original's dour setting, but could use a little lightness worked into its fabric. Director Geoff Button with the help of scenic designer Lauren Nigiri takes full advantage of the basement-like setting of the Den Theatre to fill its atmosphere with stage smoke and weird shadows, that part only for a moment when Mr. Zero visits the afterlife. With Mike Durst's excellent lighting, the desk where Mr. Zero was surprisingly happy to sit appears as a dais, a placid cloud in the middle of a storm.

Du Laney's performance as Mr. Zero calls to mind that of Joel Hatch, who originated the role (most recently seen in "Billy Elliot" and "Annie" on Broadway); he's a mostly silent man with a glare that could break a brick wall. Harrington as Mrs. Zero is quite comfortable in her role but her intentional shrewishness, textual though it may be, gets grating pretty quickly.

The cast's true standouts are Barron as Daisy and Bear Bellinger as Shrdlu, a man Mr. Zero meets in the afterlife whose crime he says is "a thousand times worse" and yet waits for punishment patiently. They bring the musical's few moments of levity to exquisite life and it feels a little airless without them.

Daisy and Mr. Zero have a beautiful duet at the end of Act 2 called "Daisy's Confession" where she tells him that she knew their brief flirtation at a company picnic was wrong, "but I wasn't thinkin' 'bout right and wrong." In a world in which no good deeds get rewarded and all human life is very soon forgotten, "Adding Machine" argues that the best thing to do is to snatch temporary pleasures for each moment on earth before the next go-round. It's a theme common to many musicals, but not often so explicit.

"Adding Machine," a production by the Hypocrites, runs through May 15 at the Den Theatre, 1333 N Milwaukee Avenue. For tickets and information, call 872-205-6525 or visit The-hypocrites.com or Thedentheatre.com