Rapid Transit was a play by Lajos Egri that premiered at the Provincetown Playhouse, New York, in April 1927 and closed before the end of the month after 20 performances.
Egri's expressionist play was translated from his original Hungarian by Gustav Davidson and Francis Edwards Faragoh, and adapted by Charles Recht.
Casting about for some adequate means of conveying a sense of the hectic pace of this machine age, Egri pictured a world in which all of life is compressed into twenty-four hours.
Realizing that this notion alone was not quite sufficient to carry a play, Egri broadened his vision to afford a comprehensive view of the world's front page.
The sets conveyed an impression of cogwheels, greasy steel pistons, chains, derricks, clanking, rumbling, thumping.