Inside Look: Emily Berrington

Emily Berrington at the Almeida Theatre in London, UK on June 19, 2018.

We spoke to actress Emily Berrington about her role as Young Woman in the Almeida Theatre production of Machinal.

An actor’s role, much like the character’s they play, is oftentimes defined by the choices they make and the chances they take. What sort of challenge does it present playing a character that is limited in their
agency?
One of the most interesting aspects of rehearsing Machinal was searching for how a character who is in many ways so limited is still actively trying to survive and thrive. Just because she isn’t successful at it
doesn’t mean the Young Woman isn’t seeking to take control of her own life. In every performance we’ve done so far I’ve found a new decision she makes in order to improve her lot. It’s actually the other characters and systems in place that crush her agency.

Machinal was loosely inspired by the murder of Ruth Snyder’s husband and the sensationalized court proceedings that followed. Do you feel that sensationalism is a timeless trait of reporting and the media? How has or hasn’t it changed within the context of the play?
I think it’s still such a relevant theme, and in many ways even more so than in 1928. Imagine what social media would have been like during the Ruth Snyder trial, not to mention the paparazzi. So much of the coverage
of the Snyder trial was about how she looked, dressed and what ‘kind’ of woman she was perceived to be – I’d love to say this wouldn’t be the case now but sadly I don’t believe it.

When you join a project that has been performed before, is there a pressure to be different? To be similar? How do you and the director (and the production in general) find that balance?
I hadn’t seen any previous productions and in many ways this was helpful. It meant I didn’t have any sense of what this play “should” be or whether we had to do something different. Our scripts had all stage directions
and character descriptions cut out so all we had to work from was the text itself.
Of course, knowing that actors you admire very much have played the role before does creep into your mind, but all I could do was keep focusing on our production.

Within Machinal, playwright Sophie Treadwell draws attention in her writing to the omnipresence of technology. What makes it so destabilizing for your character? Why does is it seem to be so fixed in our collective anxiety from 1928 to 2018?
It’s been fascinating looking at the parallels of society’s obsession with the perceived threat presented by technology both then and now. In the 1920s so much art and film was about this subject – think of Metropolis,
and Chaplin’s Modern Times. It does feel like we’re in a very similar place now, but rather than the focus being on urban development and mechanised factory work, it’s artificial intelligence. I wonder if Young Woman’s struggle with the developments of the world she lives in is similar to my own in 2018 – we’re both at the mercy of/ reliant on technology and systems that we don’t really understand and don’t have any control over.

Was there any one aspect or element or moment pertaining to your character that made it easier for you to perceive them beyond what is suggested or described about her in the play?
When I read the play I was struck by Young Woman’s struggles of living in an oppressive urban landscape. I love London and can’t imagine living anywhere else, but I find the pace, noise, transport a challenge and
like her, dream of seeing the sea.
The first time we meet Young Woman she describes having to get off the subway – “All those bodies pressing. I thought I would faint! I had to get out in the air.” This happens to me at least once a week in London – I walk for miles to avoid a crowded tube.