The Adding Machine at Huntington Theatre

Lots of stories take the lead from "zero to hero," but in The Adding Machine Mr. Zero amounts to something altogether different. Called "a landmark of American Expressionism" by Playbill, this prescient stage play takes us to a world familiar to fans of Orwell's 1984, Ridley's Blade Runner or Gilliam's Brazil. After a lifetime on the job, Zero -- an accountant for a large, faceless company -- discovers that he is being replaced by a machine. In anger and pain, he snaps and kills his (very much non-mechanical) boss. Then this classic drama by Elmer Rice follows Zero through his arrest, trial, execution ... and on into the afterlife. Now Boston University Theatre presents this play which perfectly captures anxieties which have only compounded and complicated since it was written in 1923.