Rosie Sheehy in Machinal [Manuel Harlan]

RICHARD Jones’ production of Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 play has a magnetic central performance from Rosie Sheehy.

The Old Vic’s artistic director, Matthew Warchus, first saw Machinal at Bath’s Ustinov Studio last year and immediately booked it for a London run. One can see why.

Treadwell’s drama is based on the terrible fate of Ruth Snyder, an American housewife sentenced to death for the murder of her husband in January 1928.

The trial garnered huge media interest, and one newspaper gruesomely displayed Snyder’s final moments in the electric chair on their front page.

Snyder’s case went on to inspire Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, William March’s The Bad Seeds and Guns ’n’ Roses.

In Treadwell’s compelling take, a young office worker (Sheehy) catches the eye of her boss (Tim Frances).

Transfixed by her “pretty little hands” (and her youth) he proposes. Urged on by her mother (Buffy Davis), the woman enters a loveless marriage. She is quickly suffocated by her dull husband and frustrated by her lack of desire.

Childbirth and its aftermath are traumatic – cleverly represented by the hammering of a pneumatic drill. Her homelife is stultifying. The woman longs for escape and an opportunity presents itself when she meets a young man (Pierro Niel-Mee) at a speakeasy who seduces her with his tales of adventure, while captivating her in the bedroom.

I’m not a fan of long, interval-less shows, and this is 110 minutes, but Jones’ visceral production is imaginatively staged (aided by Adam Silverman’s bold lighting and Benjamin Grant’s evocative sound) and the impressive ensemble cast pull out all the stops.

Reminiscent of Complicité’s early work, Sarah Fahie’s stylised choreography brilliantly conveys life on the assembly line and the woman’s alienation. Hyemi Shin’s tapered walls and bright yellow set adds to the sense of claustrophobia.

Recommended.

Until June 1
oldvictheatre.com/