Cyrilla Baer: Life Inside the Adding Machine

About the author:
In most musicals, an actress wouldn't be thrilled to read reviews calling her "crabbed," "detestable," "a nightmare" and "a gossipy termagant" whatever that is. But Adding Machine isn't like most musicals, and Cyrilla Baer's performance as Mrs. Zero, in the words of Broadway.com contributor John Simon, "gives shrewishness an indelibly human face." As half of what may be the most unhappy couple on the planet her hubby, Mr. Zero, is a racist murderer, for a start, Baer sets the tone in this chilling musical adaptation of Elmer Rice's 1923 play about capitalism's brutal underbelly. A transplanted Southerner who has worked at theaters and sung with symphonies all over the country, Baer is making her off-Broadway debut at the Minetta Lane Theatre, where Adding Machine—winner of four Lortel Awards, including Best Musical—recently extended its run through the summer. Broadway.com wondered what it's like to star in such a dark, dark piece—and Baer assured us that it's more fun than we might think!

"Don't you get depressed doing this show every night?"

Such a strange question to me, on many levels. The most obvious being that I am blessed to be doing what I love! And in Adding Machine, I'm doing an amazing piece of challenging theater that I am in love with. We all are: cast and crew, creative and production; we're so in love with it, we are borderline sappy!

But what they're really talking about, of course, is the bleakness they see in the piece. Does it depress me to play this hopeless and, let's face it, "unattractive"! character in this hopeless situation? Not a bit. And I don't find her, or any of the characters, hopeless. They are trapped by their own inertia, but not hopeless. In fact, to me the ending means there is always hope for change, for trying again, for stepping outside your comfort zone and taking a risk.

Not everyone feels that way, however, and that is one of the thrilling aspects of performing in Adding Machine. During the original Chicago production, we had talkbacks almost every Sunday, and on other nights, people would wait backstage to tell us how the show made them feel. They didn't want autographs, they wanted to talk! The responses were astoundingly diverse: Many felt uplifted; several said they resolved as they were applauding to go home and begin making changes in their own lives. Some were terribly put off—they felt the show said that there was no hope. Ever. One woman was absolutely incensed that "two murderers would end up in heaven!" Of course, Elmer Rice's play never says they are in heaven, only that the Elysian Fields are some kind of afterlife. But many people take this show very personally. And dammit, that's exciting!

But when you're performing it nightly, you're not always thinking about the deeper meanings, you're just living in the strange little world of Adding Machine. And I do think our backstage experience is unique. From the beginning, our director David Cromer's descriptive word for this show was "unfortunate": an unfortunate choice of clothing, an unfortunate hairstyle. He said he wanted my hair different from the Chicago production—he felt it wasn't unflattering and unfortunate enough! He asked Kristine Knanishu, our costume designer, if my belt "couldn't be a little more droopy." Now it's so droopy it spins around my waist during the course of the jail scene—much to his delight, I am sure!

Actually, there is something very freeing about coming into your dressing room and deliberately making yourself look bad. "Look! My hair is doing really strange things tonight. Isn't it great?" My stage husband, Joel Hatch, is particularly pleased with the disintegration of his undershirt, and Niffer Clarke Mrs. One with the holes in her stockings. It takes try after try after try for Amy Warren, who plays my rival, Daisy, to get her hair looking as miserable as she wants it. This is something we share with shows like Les Miz and Sweeney Todd, but those actors get to wear nice eye makeup, at least—we're supposed to look like we're living at the bottom of a well.

And then there is the dark. Not dark as in "the theme of this piece is dark," but dark as in "I can't see my own feet" dark! I was standing backstage waiting for the set change after "Zero's Confession" and looked down at myself. I was in a black dress, black boots, black gloves and a black hat and was carrying a black purse. The set is black, the costumes are black, the crew and band are in black, and the lighting is…well…kinda dim. Our amazing crew we love them lots! provides us with tiny beams of light so we can live to sing another day…but we all have bruises on our shins from running into the Elysian Fields set behind the curtain.

Maybe someday I'll wear lipstick again and shape my hair in a flattering curve around my face, and my powder will not be a pale lilac dusting over thin brown frown lines and purple under-eye circles. But till that day, I love my dark little show—we all do. And I'm happy to look and sound as "unfortunate" as I possibly can!