In the 1955 play "The Desk Set", we are presented with another electronic brain which, by it's very existence, will cause some harm to those humans that are in it's path. This three-act comedy, written by William Marchant, is currently in production at The Little Theatre of Norfolk.

The setting places us in New York City in the Reference Department of a "large" radio and television network (NBC?). The ladies who work in this small, but important, little corner of the building are Sadel Meyer (Carrie McCabe), Peg Costello (Elizabeth Ory), and Ruthie Saylor (Catherine Gendell), and placed in command over them is Bunny Watson (Lynn Rollins). It is to one of these four ladies that all the questions needed to run this massive coast to coast broadcast empire come. Whether it be the conversion of weight from the English to the Metric scale, or the stanzas to "Song of Hiawatha." They have it all, either in mental recall or in the library's stack of books just upstage. Without them, the various departments wouldn't be able to function. Christmas is just a few weeks away, with all of it's promise of presents and the office Christmas party. And Bunny's in love with, and dating, her boss Abe Cutler (Joel Haberli). Life is good.

Then Richard Sumner (Scott Rollins) steps into their lives. An efficiency engineer, who's also the BIG boss' nephew, he enters this corner of paradise and proceeds to jolt "the girls" into the latter half of the 20th century. For with his joining the story, he also brings with him the incursion of an electronic brain (a computer on the 1950's scale) which will speed up everything and be more efficient than these 4 women could ever hope to be. That's when the fun really begins to happen.

This show raises questions for those of us here in the 21st century. With our acceptance of new and faster technology (like the fact you're reading this on a computer linked to the internet rather than in a newspaper) we have to ask the question, "Is it really better?" No doubt technology has made our lives easier in many regards, but at what cost? In the context of the production, the girls have time to shop, dream of attending dances and parties, actually HAVE a large office party during business hours, and also look to marriage as a possible outcome of their time at work. Dated concepts to be sure, but quite human in their context.

The 1950's were a time of stability, Ike was President and (after the Korean conflict ended in 1953) America was at peace. Computers were things that were huge, filling entire rooms, and were stuff of science fiction, like space travel and landing on the moon or the planets. All that mattered was finding someone to marry and settling down to raise a family. The career woman was yet to truly happen, and with today's society looking back to that time we wonder, how could they have been happy? But they were. Even though the concepts and thoughts of this show strike us as outmoded and not very modern, still we need to realize that no matter how dated this show might be it's still a slice of life from our collective past.

Director Mark S. Haynie has done well.