Robots on stage
The Future is here!
Being an Ibsen fan, this production caught my eye. From http://www.lesfreres.org/heddatron/
Quote:
With Heddatron, Les Freres Corbusier continues its irreverent massacre of historical icons and academic esoterica by taking on famed playwright Henrik Ibsen, the well-made play, and contemporary issues in robotics. Ibsen is thwarted by August Strindberg and his kitchen slut throughout his fevered struggle to write the great feminist drama, Hedda Gabler, while a contemporary housewife in Michigan is abducted by robots and forced to perform Ibsen's masterpiece over and over again...
With real functioning robots portraying half of the parts, alongside humans who will play the other half, Heddatron will be one of the first theatrical productions to use functional robots as actors. Employing robotic automation and text-to-speech software, humans will perform opposite a hunky Lovborg-bot, a clunky Tessman-bot, as well as blinking, smoking, and whirring co-stars who portray Judge Brack, Aunt Julie, and the rest of Ibsen's menagerie.
|
You know, I've been a bit dissapointed with the twenty-first century so far - no flying cars, no cheap holiday flights to Mars, no food pills, no space aliens, no unisex silver spandex overalls (okay, I can live without those) and the robots have been dissapointing so far. But this is more like it. :thumbsup:
SF literature and movies have discussed the issues of robot-human relations for almost a century now, it's about time theatre does it as well. I don't know if I'm being silly, but this actually makes the concept of actual robots actually existing more real to me than video clips of Asimo performing amazing stunts like Walking! and Shaking Hands!
Now, where's that flying DeLorean? |
