Adding Machine

February of 2008 has turned out to be a heck of a terrific month for non-traditional and daring Off-Broadway musicals. (Do we have any more opening by tomorrow night?) Following the exhilarating Next To Normal and the entrancingly Dadaist The Blue Flower we now have Joshua Schmidt (music and libretto) and Jason Loewith's (libretto) haunting chamber piece, Adding Machine, based on Elmer Rice's 1923 Expressionist drama. To call it 'old-fashioned' would be misleading, but one of the pleasures of Adding Machine is that it recalls a time when political and social protest musicals were not uncommon among Gotham's theatrical offerings.