La Mama Theatre, Carlton, until May 5, 2013
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
Stars: ***
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Review also published in Herald Sun on line on Friday April 19, 2013. KH
Review also published in Herald Sun on line on Friday April 19, 2013. KH
Just
like Data in Star Trek, these robots want to experience Art and emotion.
Simon Maiden in Robots Vs. Art
Actors
paled when they heard of a Japanese company in 2009 performing a play with
robots instead of actors, but Travis Cotton was unfazed; he wrote a comedy
about it.
Cotton’s
play, Robots Vs Art, is set in a futuristic, sci-fi world in which humans now work
mining minerals deep underground and are subordinate to the robots that they
created.
Of
course, just like Mr. Data in Star Trek, the executive Master Bot (Simon
Maiden) wants to experience Art and to feel human emotion so, what does he do?
He writes a play.
Daniel
Frederiksen is entertainingly guileless as bemused, fearful Giles, the only
human left alive, and captures Giles’ aimless, confused complexity of the human
race that cannot be quantified by the robots.
Some
of the dialogue and characters have some laugh-out-loud moments, particularly
Claw Bot, the dim-witted worker robot, played with clever comic timing and
delivery by Paul David Goddard.
Maiden
plays his Executive Bot as a heartless, corporate boss who transforms into a
playwright who punishes his critics with beatings, and then into a pompous,
theatrical producer.
The
play satirises the idiosyncrasies of theatre and playwriting, so some humour
may be lost on those not from the world of the rehearsal room and stage.
Despite
its laughs, the script feels a little long and undercooked and the story
predictable, while Cotton’s direction is sometimes awkward, with too many slow,
clunky scene changes.
It’s
certainly a bit of fun though, and it makes a welcome change from all those
stand-ups in the Comedy Festival.
By
Kate Herbert
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