Are robot good at being humanist than humanity are ? A new science fiction play in New York City wants to know — and it will wipe out loads of people , in rules of order to find out .
In “ Motherboard , ” the year is 2465 , twenty eld after a vehement uprising of sentient machines slaughtered two - thirds of the world population . Humanity struggles to survive , with the disdain military government more worried about why the car pick out to deactivate than building a new world from nuclear - irradiate ashes . Enter C-12 , the finest specimen of a keep golem the forces have found . The play opens with her dissection .
present by the AntiMatter Collective at The Secret Theatre ( continue the meeting place ’s tradition of spearheading science fabrication in theater ) “ Motherboard ” has the note of being the most violent point production I ’ve ever visit . “ Gore / makeup ” designer Stephanie Cox - Williams ’ effects are as immersive as the characters and action , and playwright Adam Scott Mazer is also billed as fight choreographer . Watch as android skin is peeled back to reveal circuitry ; look on out for sudden bloodsplatters . The ring of gunshot and the smell of smoke from lacuna fulfil the melodic line .
From the start , “ Motherboard ” is an intensely forcible shimmer . It begins with the test of the entire android poser , a “ nurtureon ” that had once been deploy for childcare . This particular auto , C-12 , was found amidst the ruins of the family she served and murdered . A deactivated robot in a futuristic play is like Chekhov ’s rule of the gunman : we know she will go off eventually . It happens with nail - biting , revulsion - movie flair .
C-12 awakens to a earthly concern still in the throes of a mail - Book of Revelation ; many of the caparison will finger familiar to scientific discipline fable aficionados . Computer technology , having reached a uniqueness - stage crisis , is now for the most part malfunctioning and outlawed . A battle - hardened , overbearing government will do anything necessary to further the mintage ’ survival , even if it mean dealing harshly with individual life .
Those depart on the Earth’s surface scavenge amid scanty resource and irradiation , and the dregs of humanity seem muck in a brutal , almost sub - human culture of sexual powerplays , drug and wildness . They are so diverged from the war - heroes in charge that their very language has changed — they speak in descriptive command lyric that communicate wants and desire without subtlety , more robotic than the robot ’s somewhat more eloquent speech .
As C-12 , Rebecca Hirota is surprisingly good , moving the activity along and managing to translate the machinated threat into a likeable antiheroine . Lovely to look at , she packs a dry pint - sized Buffy / River Tam badass punch . I am also fully convinced that she is an android , to the mention of director Will Fulton . The reminiscent solidification is crammed with old tech , some of which make out to life story , and canny exercise of strung - up mason jars for lighting makes for a leg that transitions well as the robot go on the getaway .
C-12 is the most interesting and unpredictable world in “ Motherboard , ” the idea of a rogue “ nannybot ” chill - inducing in its implications , but the story has other strange family for her to encounter . Like a robo - Dorothy , she sets out across an stern alien land , given the directive that has point adventure narratives since the break of day of time : there ’s no place like plate . No matter that the house she seeks is now a ruined wasteland and the family is long dead at her own hand , in what one grapheme remarks “ must have been a domestic dramatic event of the high caliber . ”
A series of intriguing stylized liveliness by Jonathan Shaw and Emily Friend Roberts play between some of the action on stage , suggest the creeping decay of the human - robot servile human relationship , while the high - pitched wail of a sister often splits the air . The narrative is as concerned with human nativity as much as it is with technical Renascence , exemplified by a persona named after the Hellenic goddess of the Underworld , Penelope ( Elizabeth Bays ) , the whizz behind the curtain in “ Neo - Penelopon , ” here the blackmarket trading shopping center .
Dressed like a half-crazed Alice in Wonderland and half a Queen of Hearts , Bays pass on a manic , convincing go at a uniquely bizarre say-so figure . By the time we reach her in “ Motherboard , ” our sense of reality is so altered that we can accept her rule in an upside - down humans . I ’ll entrust it to the interview to experience Penelope and her gruff , Hades - corresponding guardian Ned ( Andrew Krug ) , described in future - speak as “ conducting wire - twirl like a kinda shade kat . ”
On her journeying , C-12 encounters the fall - out of society in the form of Maggot ( Bryce Henry , marvelously grotesque ) and Sweetums ( Alison Laplantey , excellently shrill ) , the former nearly reverted to half - animal , the latter his BDSM - dressed keeper . The characters can grate , specially with their stylized mode of speech , which can take a while to parse ; but the intuitive , purposeful disfavor they evoke is effective , and the pair terminate up with the most wrenchingly human moment of the play . They ’re all being run by vengeful war - hero Abraham ( Casey Robinson ) , who hates C-12 with a perseverance part Ahab , part Javert , and part Captain Hook .
Robinson and his military crew do what they can with the side - plot , including Penny Flick as his ruffianly Starbuck of a married woman and James Rutherford as a creepy-crawly robot - loving MD , but their stories are developing in favor of C12 ’s . The other characters seem to exist at times but to see what the golem will do with them , and some of the force is exuberant enough to butt on camp .
To its credit , “ Motherboard ” is never boring , and provokes an bound - of - the - tooshie tension that holds up for hour . fan of revulsion and suspense will get it on the action , while the play also ask speculative query about the rightful purpose of applied science alongside those of love , family , and politics . All are prescient subject , and the reveal of why the robots deactivate and why they lash out in the first seat is fulfil and disturbing . Do mind the blood and plasma .
Motherboard , presented by AntiMatter Collective at The Secret Theatre ( 44 02 23rd Street , Long Island City , Queens ) through October 14 ; Thursday through Saturday at 8 postmortem and Sundays at 3 pm . Tickets ( $ 18 ) may bepurchased onlineor by calling 1 - 800 - 838 - 3006 .
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