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Stephanie Mazari
Theater 374
Professor Deluca
17 October 2015
Machinal Response
The play Machinal overall was a great production. This is the first time I have attended a

play in college, I have only seen plays in high school. A high school play and a University play

are on two separate levels. The play consisted of nine different settings and with one base design

the director Naomi Buckley brought the different places to life. The play was done beautifully,

the cast, the set, the lighting, and the effects. As a director it is a challenge to work with limited

space and time but Buckley made it work.

The cast of the play was great, especially the main character, the young woman. The

young woman did a great job of making the audience believe and feel that she was going crazy.

She also did a great job with giving the audience a sense of being trapped and wanting to be free.

The emotions and thoughts she had were portrayed very well and the audience was able to relate

with her right away. It was not only the great projection of lines but the body language and

movements. Another character that was a great choice was Mr. Jones, he was a great fit as the

successful boss. At times his lines seem just a little rushed but overall a great job. The mother did

a great job at portraying the mother and showing her emotions towards her daughter. The rest of

the cast had about three other small roles they played and I thought they were done exceptional.

The transition from being one character to another was great and the director did a great use with

only a certain number of cast members.

The setting of the play was very well done, to be able to create one main piece and work

with it was great. The director was able to create mime different places with one set. The best
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part was when the set was changing from one scene to the other the members of the play came

out dancing or doing something that tied in with the setting of the play and I thought it was done

beautifully. The scene changes were done so great that it was even enjoyable to watch the set up.

The only part that I didn’t like as much was after the seventh scene, the lights went off and when

they came back on the actors were gone and many people thought the play was over. I would

have like to have some king of direction saying the play was not over. The program said the play

was to be 90 minutes without intermissions, so many believe the play had ended at that point. In

the beginning and the middle of the play background music was playing to give the feeling of the

environment of the scene but it was hard to hear certain lines due to the music. I think the

background music should have been lowered a little or the actor should have been a little louder

at those times. Overall the setting of the play was very well staged. The movements of the actors

always had reason behind them, the lighting was great and made sure the audience knew who to

pay attention too since there was so much movement going on in the background.

To conclude I really enjoyed the play like I said the last play I saw was in high school

and I was pleasantly surprised at the great production put on by Naomi Buckley. I believe she did

a marvelous job with the cast and how she utilized the characters for other roles. I also liked how

she did a great job with portraying the scenes with just chairs, tables and the main stage. I feel

the production ran very smooth as well as the transitions. The actors seemed very prepared and

the movements always had meaning. My favorite part of the play was towards the end when Mrs.

Jones felt she was going crazy again and the other actors were in the background on the stairs

portraying he inner thoughts, this was done incredibly well, this just shows the amazing work of

a director and her great use of the resources she had.