In Defense of the Woman: Sophie Treadwell's Machinal

In Defense of the Woman: Sophie Treadwell's Machinal JENNIFER JONES On March 20, 1927, Albert Snyder was found murdered in his bed, beaten on the head with a blunt object, chloroformed, and strangled with a piece of picture wire. When the police arrived, his wife, Ruth, was discovered outside their daughter's room, bound and gagged. She told police she had been attacked by a tall Italian man, and claimed to have fainted when he grabbed her, remaining unconscious for over five hours. The small house had been ransacked , drawers were emptied, and Ruth's jewelry stolen. Police became suspicious when the "stolen" jewelry was found under Ruth's mattress, and when she neglected to ask after her husband they felt sure she was involved in the murder. When told he was dead, they said the tears she shed were "suspiciously few."I After nearly twenty hours of questioning, Ruth Snyder confessed that, with her lover, Judd Gray, she had beaten her husband to death with a sash weight while her nine-year-old daughter slept in the next room. Later she would change her story to say that it was Gray who had masterminded the murder and that she had been unable to stop him. Ultimately both Ruth and Gray were convicted of murder and executed at Sing Sing on January 12, 1928. Eight months after Ruth Snyder died in the electric chair, Sophie Treadwell's play Machinal, directed by Arthur Hopkins, and designed by Robert Edmund Jones, opened at the Plymouth Theatre in New York City. Increasingly, scholars and directors are "rediscovering" this play, and many consider it to be one of America's finest expressionist dramas. Most of the original reviewers in 1928 wrote that Machinal was only loosely based on the Ruth Snyder case, and this position has been quoted and accepted by contemporary scholarship. However, a close examination of that trial and the unprecedented coverage it received lead me to believe that Ruth Snyder was never far from Sophie Treadwell's mind as she wrote Machinal. In a last-minute attempt to save Ruth's life, her attorneys had asked that an alienist (psychiatrist) be brought in to testify on her behalf. Hoping to save Modern Drama, 37 (1994) 485 JENNIFER JONES their client, the lawyers wanted to examine Ruth's mind in light of modern science? The Governor denied the request. It is possible to look at Machinal as Treadwell's attempt to examine Ruth's mind in the light of modem drama, ironically, giving her an appropriately theatrical life-after-death. I believe Machinal is the testimony, disallowed by the court of law, that Treadwell wished to introduce into the court of public opinion. She sets forth her argument in a drama, not to prove Snyder's innocence, but to ask if perhaps there is another way of looking at the case, one that the all-male jury and predominantly male press corps did not understand. But in order to appreciate Treadwell 's defense of Ruth, it is first necessary to contextualize the actual trial. Albert Snyder's murder had captured the imagination of the public and created a media event of astonishing proportions. Over 1500 people attended the Snyder trial and 180 reporters were assigned to the case. Treadwell, an experienced journalist, was not officially covering the trial, but she was a spectator in the courtroom. For the first time in history, microphones and speakers were set up in a courtroom so that everyone could hear the testimony. One had to have a ticket to be admitted, and scalpers were ready, as always, to make a quick buck, selling tickets for fifty dollars apiece. The second day Ruth took the stand, the New York Times described the spectators in the courtroom as "a typical Broadway audience, sophisticated and cynical."3 In attendance were playwright Willard Mack; philosopher Will Durant; W.E. Woodward; Ben Hecht; Fannie Hurst; and Nora Bayes. Spectators were as interested in the stars as in the trial, and the tabloids solicited celebrity opinions for their columns . David Belasco, who came every day and sat in a front row seat, wrote: Poor unfortunate woman - drawn into this mess as...