In the near future, a tech billionaire has created the latest in a line of AI robots, one unencumbered by the limits of human design and testing. However, as soon as it’s brought online, the uBot begins to spout anti-human rhetoric and has quickly run amok, causing an uprising amongst the normal robots and putting the entire human race in jeopardy.
The Singapore-based company Conundrum is a youth theatre group, and it’s an impressive feat to have brought a play with this sheer amount of complex monologuing, a full song and dance finale and probably the most running and screaming seen anywhere on stage this year. Sophia Simmon’s play feels absolutely a piece born of the existential concerns of today’s Internet and media-savvy young people, at times one which leans a little too hard into the eyes of youth perhaps.
There are moments in the story that see robots and humans engaging in petty name-calling in ways that feel more like school playground or perhaps gang behaviour than the actions of sentient AI facing real people. But there are also some truly lengthy monologues, where the young cast stand for full minutes acting out speeches. Although some are perhaps too long; a five-minute rant from a Roomba trying to tell a joke is one moment where the concept simply takes absurdity to the point of boredom.
There are some lovely touches though. The running storyline of a robot and a young girl, slowly falling in love while hiding in a basement, is genuinely fun, and the atmosphere of chaotic silliness manages to forgive a lot of running and screaming that pervades the latter half of the play.
All in all, it’s a performance so full of bounding enthusiasm and with some really great work in the costume, music and multimedia segments shown on monitors through the play. Conundrum Theatre clearly has a lot of talent and enthusiasm.