The Oxford Dictionary of Plays

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The Adding Machine

Adding Machine, The

Author: Elmer Rice

First Performance: 1923, New York

Published: 1923

Genre: Drama in 7 scenes

Setting: New York and heaven, 1920s

Cast: 14m, 9f

Mr Zero lives a boringly suburban conventional life with his wife. At work, Zero fantasizes about his fellow clerk Daisy Diana Dorothea Devore. He also wonders whether his 25 years as a bookkeeper will be rewarded, when his boss tells him that he is to be sacked and replaced with a new adding machine. At a dinner party, where the guests chant their racist prejudices, Zero confesses to murdering his boss. At the trial, Zero's confused defence fails to impress the jury. He is found guilty and executed. In the graveyard, he encounters the puritanical Shrdlu, who murdered his mother. In heaven, Daisy, who committed suicide after Zero's execution,...

[The entire page is 289 words long]

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