ADDING MACHINE: A MUSICAL • R-S Theatrics/Soundstage Productions

The last joint production of Soundstage and R-S Theatrics is quite a challenging choice.  Adapted from Elmer Rice's 1923 Expressionistic play, the musical premiered at the Next Theatre in Evanston Illinois and opened off-Broadway in 2008 at the Minetta Lane Theatre.  It received many off-Broadway nominations, and won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical.

The characters in this black musical comedy are not your typical musical theatre types.  Set against a score of complicated rhythms and quirky melodies, these people's lives are bleak, with just about everyone going by numbers instead of names -- like cogs in a machine.  Yet this show has a way of making you want to root for this cheerless, long-faced bunch, even though they may not strike you as likable at first.  The drudgery of their lives is by some means relatable.

AUTOBAHN • Soundstage Productions/R-S Theatrics

A girl on her way home from rehab, an inappropriate trip to a cabin in the woods, and a series of pre-interpretations that turn "make-out" point into "break-up" point and then back again -- these are some of the situations explored in Neil LaBute's 2003 collection of seven brief one-act, two-characters plays, and it's getting a fittingly intimate production by Soundstage Productions/R-S Theatrics.  (<-- Sorry.  Longest sentence ever.)

While these vignettes are unrelated, they all take a look at relationship dynamics, and take place in the front seat of a car.  The additional common denominator is the fact that they are also language-oriented.  David Mamet is one of LaBute's favorite playwrights, and in like fashion, connotations and perceptions of meaning are examined and the "here's the dark underbelly" of things are uncovered.