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University of Sussex BA Drama, Theatre & Performance Finalists present:

Machinal

Tickets will be available to book soon

Originally produced in 1928, Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal stands as a landmark of American expressionism. Inspired by the highly publicised case of Ruth Snyder, a Queens housewife whose trial and execution transfixed the nation, the play exposes how a woman’s private despair can become a public spectacle. Rather than recounting Snyder’s life, Treadwell uses it to examine the social expectations, pressures, and restrictive norms that shaped many women’s experiences in the early twentieth century.

The University of Sussex BA Drama, Theatre and Performance finalist production invites you into the protagonist’s inner world, where the mechanical pulse of modern life clashes with her growing need for freedom. Through stylised movement, fragmented imagery, and expressionistic design, we aim to reveal not only the world she inhabits, but the psychological forces pressing against her from within. Machinal asks us to look beyond headlines and confront the human story buried beneath them. In this staging, Snyder becomes less a figure of sensation and more a symbol of countless women navigating suffocating expectations, an echo that resonates powerfully today.

Duration: 75 minutes

Age guidance: 13+

Content warning:

Machinal contains scenes and themes that some audience members may find distressing. These include: domestic and intimate partner violence; emotional and psychological abuse; sexual content, including implied sexual assault; references to capital punishment and execution; and depictions of mental distress and trauma. Audience discretion is advised.