Review: Ada and the Engine

Photo by Dale Sutton

Ada and the Engine, by Lauren Gunderson, currently playing at Driftwood Players in Edmonds. Directed by Eric Bischoff.

March 1-17, 2024 at the Wade James Theatre. Purchase tickets online or by phone at 425-774-9600

As the British Industrial Revolution dawns, young Ada Byron Lovelace (daughter of the flamboyant and notorious Lord Byron) sees the boundless creative potential in the “analytic engines” of her friend and soulmate Charles Babbage, inventor of the first mechanical computer.

Ada played by Guneet Kaur Banga
Photo by Dale Sutton 

Ada envisions a whole new world where art and information converge—a world she might not live to see. A music-laced story of love, friendship, and the edgiest dreams of the future. Jane Austen meets Steve Jobs in this poignant pre-tech romance heralding the computer age.

The huge golden gears that encompassed the majority of the stage were a constant reminder of the size of the engine and a metaphor for the space that the engine filled in Ada and Babbage's imagination.

While the math and the technical aspects of the engine were beyond my skill set, Ada and Babbage's enthusiasm for the subject was contagious.

Babbage, played by Sumant Gupta, Maary Somerville, played by Elizabeth A. Shipman, and Ada, played by Guneet Kaur Banga. Photo by Dale Sutton

The incredibly talented cast crafted a mathematical story in words and built the engine in the audience's imagination. The sounds, the sights, and the movement of the gears were vivid in my mind.

I really enjoyed Lord Lovelace's character growth - BJ Smyth did an excellent job of expressing the gamut of infuriating to sympathetic.

A particular scene I really appreciated portrayed the passage of time. The actors interacted silently on stage while correspondence between Ada and Babbage over time was projected on the screen at the back. Narration in the characters own voices read the letters where Ada shared news of her marriage, birth of her children and subsequent illness while Babbage engaged her intellectually. 

--Review by Kindle Carpp