Name: Machinal
Start: 2026-10-16T20:00:00
Location: Yale University

Amanda Whiteley

David Geffen School of Drama at Yale

Inspired by the 1927 case of convicted murderer Ruth Snyder, this expressionistic epic follows the heart-palpitating descent of an ordinary woman trapped inside a masculine hellscape. With its crackling dialogue, brutal humor, and unapologetic optimism for the human spirit, Machinal asks, what does it cost a person to survive a system that was never built to sustain them? How, if we are all cogs inside the machine of modernity, can we destroy the machine without destroying the body?

Machinal

Yale University

The world is in chaos— the sky is no longer blue, there’s a crusade against the homeless, apples are extinct, and no one’s seen the moon for nine months. A guardian angel appears in a dream to Marisol—a young, Nuyorican woman from the Bronx—with a mission: lead a war against the heavens and restore vitality to the universe. Marisol must ask herself: How will she choose to live in a time of destruction? Will she stand by her old faith and abide by the powers that be, or will she join the revolution in hopes of a new world?

Marisol

When a brilliant physician makes a split-second decision at a dying patient's bedside, a single act of medical conscience ignites a firestorm that threatens to consume everything she has built. A striking reimagining of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1912 play Professor Bernhardi, Robert Icke's The Doctor is a merciless examination of one woman's unraveling and a razor-sharp portrait of a society that devours its own.