Sophie Treadwell's Machinal is described as a defiant look at one woman's descent from marriage to motherhood to murder. It's the story of Helen, who is constantly being controlled by the people around her, whether it is her nagging mother, her husband, or an unwanted child. The life she leads is bereft of love, passion, and freedom. Machinal is a French word that means "mechanical" or "automatic". Nothing could be closer to the truth to describe Helen's life.

She is a woman trapped by her decisions; someone who has always tried to do what was considered the right thing by society, like getting married and having children. But these are false dreams, misunderstandings of what happiness is, and the results of her decisions seem almost inevitable.

Since her domineering mother, whom she has to financially support, never allows her go out, Helen's life is a routine of work, home, work, home. When she talks to her mother of her boss' marriage proposal and asks her about love, her mother replies, "Why do you need love?" Helen ends up marrying the boss because he was the first man who asked.

The honeymoon scene is hard to watch because the audience knows that the man makes Helen's skin crawl. "He's got fat hands," she complains and wonders if she'll ever get used to the revulsion she feels when he touches her.

The play continues to tell the story of the birth of her child, her deteriorating relationship with her oblivious husband, and the entrance of a young lover – an adventurer who had to murder two men in Mexico for freedom. He is the inspiration for the tools of the husband's murder. He is also a breath of fresh air to her stale, stifling life and for once, she doesn't recoil at a man's touch. "I never thought I could feel like this," she rejoices.

The play is loosely based upon the 1927 Ruth Snyder-Judd Gray murder trial that Treadwell covered as a reporter and is her most well known work. Snyder was the first woman ever to be executed in the electric chair in New York State after she, along with her lover Gray, murdered her husband.

Plays like this might have a potential for being a bit pretentious, a little too self-aware that they're trying to tell a "serious" story". Modern theater pieces can sometimes be inaccessible to audiences who aren't in "the know". But director Ianthe Demos and her strong cast deliver a production that is immediate and engaging. From the first moment when people enter the small theater they are immediately confronted with the silent, motionless actors who sit on the stage, in the risers, some behind the audience.

Set Designer James Hunting uses ladders that reach up to the ceiling – a unique and interesting use of staging throughout the play. The cast aptly uses the ladders as expressionistic furniture devices. The lighting by Mike Riggs successfully reflects the dark tone of the piece, getting darker during Helen's descent to murder and freedom from her oppressive life. Costume designer Kay Lee uses minimalist, utilitarian, almost military like outfits to relate the loss of individualism in a machine-like society.

The play seemed to jump too quickly to the trial. The audience has to use their imaginations while the prosecutor revisits the brutal scene of the murder through interrogation.

Ariane Barbanell is perfect as Helen. She expertly handles the role of moving back and forth between so-called sanity and madness. Bill Coelius plays the part of the husband so well in his constant and annoying cliché-ridden badgering, that it's no wonder Helen kills him. Durand Ford is appropriately cast as the lover who first shows Helen what freedom is about.

Machinal also features Brian Armstrong, Marie-Pierre Beausejour, Jarret Berenstein, Jordan Cerutti, Kate DiMarco, Marco Formosa, Same George, Jack McGowan, and Brian M. Thomas.

In 1928, the play was lauded by the New York Times as a play that "in a hundred years should still be vital and vivid." That it is. It's not one of those feel-good, uplifting plays, but it's not meant to be.

It's wonderful to know that there are these little gems of theater companies like One Year Lease that dot the New York City artistic landscape. That's what makes the city and its art so great.