Masha Obolensky's new historical drama--about Sophie Treadwell, her play Machinal, and its source in the 1927 trial of Ruth Snyder for her husband's murder--might have been dull as paste. How do you dramatize writing a play? But Obolensky seizes all the disparate, fascinating threads of her subject, from Treadwell's "neurasthenia" to her complicated but congenial marriage and her troubled relationship with her father, and weaves them together, not seamlessly, but believably. Slightly expressionistic, this feminist but never didactic work suggests similarities between the vastly different characters of Treadwell, Snyder, and the protagonist of Machinal, the Young Woman. But what it does best is represent the gender-neutral act of creation--its bewildering, all-encompassing heat. Nick Bowling's world premiere boasts impeccable performances and dazzling, ingenious design and staging.
