The Adding Machine ★★★★★

The New Group launches its 2026 Season in the company’s new home at the Theatre at St. Clement’s with The Adding Machine, and if this revival of Elmer Rice’s 1923 landmark of American Expressionism is any indication, theatergoers have much reason to be excited.

Directed by founding company artistic director Scott Elliott, with script revisions by Thomas Bradshaw, the play centers on Mr. Zero (Daphne Rubin-Vega), a bookkeeper who is expecting a raise but instead is unceremoniously fired on his 25th anniversary at the firm, replaced by the titular machine.

All goes downhill after that, and things weren’t that grand to begin with for Mr. Zero. His relationship with co-worker Daisy Diana Dorothea Devore (Sarita Choudhury, quietly affecting) has devolved into quiet animosity, The Boss (Michael Cyril Creighton) fails to remember his name despite his quarter-century tenure at the firm, and his marriage to Mrs. Zero (Jennifer Tilly, marvelous) has long lost its fizz.

The play actually starts not in an office but in the Zeros’ bedroom, following a short prologue, in which the Narrator (Creighton again; his official — and apt — character name in this show is Everybody Else) describes it as “A bedroom that has seen better days, though no one can recall when those were…” Mrs. Zero certainly can’t, and Tilly impressively delivers a rather long monologue without skipping a beat, introducing the audience to her drab existence as she blames her silent, suffering husband, who lies next to her, waiting for her to stop talking. “I didn’t pick much when I picked you, I’ll tell the world. You ain’t much to be proud of. But you’re all I’ve got, I guess. I’m used to it.”

The next morning, a day which should be celebratory, feels anything but. The way The Narrator describes Mr. Zero’s morning routine will feel familiar to anyone who’s had to go to a job they loathe but can’t escape: “The suit goes on. The suit that says ‘I’m still necessary.’ He disappears inside it. Button, button, button, zip. The suit is armor. The tie is a noose.”

It’s at the end of that fateful day that Mr. Zero gets laid off, and he has to return home and face a dinner party that Mrs. Zero arranged with Messrs. One through Five, and their respective wives, all played by Creighton in a marvelously funny show-stopping bit, a soupçon of humor in a story that will soon turn into an existential nightmare.

It’s a bit surreal to see Rubin-Vega, the charismatic exotic dancer Mimi in Rent 30 years ago, now play a difficult, fairly charmless man, but she pulls it off and then some. Moreover, having a Panamanian-American actress spew anger and vitriol as a straight man adds an additional level of complexity to a character that is neither hero nor villain, and Rubin-Vega fearlessly plays him. Her Mr. Zero never begs to be liked.

Director Elliott has not only assembled a fantastic cast but also top-notch designers. Scenic designer Derek McLane has imagined a daunting floor-to-ceiling wall of cubby holes filled with typewriters, fans, and desk lamps; and Catherine Zuber’s costumes perfectly relay the depressing lives these characters lead. In addition, Jeff Croiter and Stan Mathabane have done excellent work in lighting and sound, respectively.

When Rice wrote The Adding Machine, anxieties about technology and work abounded. One hundred years later the technology may have evolved from a mechanical calculator to artificial intelligence, but those anxieties remain at a fever pitch. Elliott and company have created a superb reminder that the dehumanization of people for the sake of corporate profits leads to an endless loop of missed opportunities and discarded lives, revealing how little we as a society have progressed over the last century.