Track Listing

1. Prelude 2. Something to Be Proud Of 3. Office Reverie 4. In Numbers 5. I'd Rather Watch You 6. The Party 7. Zero's Confession 8. Once More/Ham and Eggs 9. Didn't We? 10. The Gospel According to Shrdlu 11. A Pleasant Place 12. Shrdlu's Blues 13. Daisy's Confession/I'd Rather Watch You (reprise) 14. Freedom!/The Flinch 15. In Numbers (reprise) 16. Freedom! (reprise) 17. The Music of the Machine

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #77808 in Music
• Released on: 2008-06-03
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Cast Recording
• Dimensions: .25 pounds

Amazon.com
Musicals are not all big razzamatazz enterprises playing on the Great White Way. The remarkable Adding Machine is a somber, modernist chamber work that opened in Chicago in 2007 before a successful Off-Broadway run, the following year. Based on Elmer Rice's 1923 expressionist play, the musical centers around antihero Mr. Zero (Joel Hatch), a number-crunching drone stuck between a surreal soulless office job and a drab home life. It's simply amazing that this downer premise could turn into such a compelling show. Successfully melding vocals that range from theatrical to semi-operatic with synthesizer-heavy arrangements, composer Joshua Schmidt has come up with a series of weird little art songs. This is not "fun," escapist music; it demands the listener's full attention, and does not shy away from harshness and dissonance, making the oases of beauty all the more compelling, and the rewards all the more satisfying. Is this what a David Lynch-­penned musical would sound like? -- Elisabeth Vincentelli

Review
THE ADDING MACHINE
Elmer Rice's 1923 Expressionist classic The Adding Machine influenced a good deal of 20th-century endeavors (it even has a 1969 film version with Phyllis Diller!), but the prospect of a musical that crams its three-hour abstractions into a distinctive, coherent 90-minute work seems a Herculean task, no? Not for Joshua Schmidt and Jason Loewith, the creators of Adding Machine, a brave, brilliant re-imagining of Rice's tale of Man vs. Machine. It centers on the hapless, deadpan Mr. Zero (marvelously played by Joel Hatch), who learns that after a quarter-century as a bookkeeper, he's getting the boot in favor of advanced technology, sending him on a surreal tour through imprisonment, death, and even afterlife where Mr. Zero discovers the true nature of his being. Directed with chilling acuity by David Cromer, who also helmed this production last year in Chicago, Adding Machine gives off an effect a little like being trapped in the coolest '80s music-video fever dream imaginable. With nods to seminal works like Fritz Lang's Metropolis, and lit with a speakeasy smokiness, the work is unsparing in its angst, yet never defeating especially in the stirring scenes between Mr. Zero and his co-worker/soulmate Daisy (Amy Warren, in a richly emotional, heartbreaking turn), whose unlikely romance suggests a slanted Sondheim. You have to work a bit to fully derive this musical's pleasures and many will not want to but it rattles in your brain long after you've left the theater. (Tickets: 212-307-4100 or
Ticketmaster.com) Grade: A. --Entertainment Weekly

Customer Reviews

It all adds up
On this recording, the remarkable score comes off even better than it does in the theater. Joshua Schmidt employs a range of styles, from minimalism to 1930s pop, and to great effect in this harrowing work about a man named Mr. Zero who is replaced by an adding machine. Joel Hatch's nearly anti-musical vocal performance brings out the depth of the score as he croaks his way through an essentially untuneful or anti-tuneful life as underscored by the brilliant singing of the support ensemble, particularly Joe Farrell as the matricidal fellow inmate. Of course, the score can't capture the stunning break in visual style the stage production employs, but the last third of the music really goes many unexpected places, just as the characters do. Each listening brings fresh insights.

A unique score that is well worth having.
The recording of Adding Machine perfectly captures the entire musical with its wonderful performances and unique score that is unlike anything else currently running in New York. If you have had the good fortune to see this production on stage, you will know what a unique theater experience it is. When I saw the show I knew that my appreciation for the score would only grow in repeated listenings, which it has. The musical performances both define the characters and further the plot and are true to the original Elmer Rice play. Once again PS Classics has identified and recorded a show that will not be forgotten once the original production has ended.

Welcome Joshua Schmidt
A powerful score to a dark brooding musical. Performances are uniformly superb. Thanks to PS Classics for recordings this extraordinary piece of music theater. Keep an eye/ear on composer Joshua Schmidt!