Machinal

Sophie Treadwell's expressionist drama premiered on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre in 1928. It was inspired by the case of Ruth Snyder, who was executed for murdering her husband. In a series of short, stylised episodes it follows a Young Woman, a stenographer who lives with her mother and marries her employer, a man she finds repulsive, to escape the grind of office life. Marriage and motherhood leave her more trapped than before, and an affair with a younger man gives her a brief taste of freedom. She kills her husband, and is tried and sent to the electric chair.