‘Machinal’ Tepidly Tells Murderer’s Tale

Sophie Treadwell loosely based her 1928 expressionistic play “Machinal” on convicted murderer Ruth Snyder. In the Nomad Theatre Company’s lukewarm revival at the 24th Street Theatre, an uninspired Melody Mooney takes Snyder’s role.

A young woman (Mooney) marries her boss, a much older man (Chris Mock), because she must provide financial stability for her nagging mother (Elizabeth Ince). After what might today be labeled postpartum depression, she meets a handsome bachelor (Tom Mesmer) at a speak-easy, and they begin an affair that ends when he leaves the city.

Mooney beams happiness when paired with Mesmer, but she can’t reach the tragic depths of a woman trapped between duty and love in a male-dominated society.

Director Louise Bale handles the ensemble well enough as they whirl through different scenarios, but some segments drag, most notably those in the hospital and speak-easy.

Bale’s program notes proclaim that when Treadwell covered the Ruth Snyder-Judd Gray trial, she was “probably one of the few people in that courtroom who understood the convicted woman’s motives,” implying that the all-male jury couldn’t fairly judge Snyder.

Unlike the play’s protagonist, whose one attempt seemed unpremeditated, Snyder made several attempts to kill her husband, succeeding in 1927 with the help of her married lover, Gray.

The infamous photograph of Snyder’s demise--the first woman sentenced to death by electrocution in the state of New York--was taken covertly, not openly as Bale portrays it.

*

“Machinal,” 24th Street Theatre, 1117 W. 24th St., North University Park. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; March 18, 8 p.m. Ends March 18. $10 to $15. (310) 542-3176. Running time: 2 hours.