A young woman marries her boss because that’s what a young woman in the 1920s is supposed to do—find security. She loathes him, however, and an affair with a younger man awakens her longing for freedom. Such is the premise of Machinal, a 1928 play by Sophie Treadwell that was based on the notorious 1926 case of Ruth Snyder, a Long Island housewife sent to the electric chair for murdering her husband. In 2014, The New York Times called the play a “rare and disturbing beauty.” Machinal has returned in a production directed by Amy Marie Seidel, its emotional and visual intensity heightened by Madison Hilligoss’s dance sequences and choreographed movement. Katherine Winter stars as the Young Woman, whose struggle against gendered oppression still resonates with unnerving force today. —Jeanne Malle