Not One of These People - Royal Court Theatre
Nov 3, 2022 23:53:34 GMT
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Post by Steve on Nov 3, 2022 23:53:34 GMT
Saw this tonight, and LOVED it!
A cinema screen shows hundreds of computer generated, real looking, fake people, created by AI, which are all given voice by Martin Crimp, the author, himself.
There is no story as such, but there is a progression of ideas, reflecting on identity, culture wars, and what it means for an author to create characters.
It's endlessly fascinating, often repetitive, occasionally funny, always thought-provoking, but only if you want to think about the above issues, so if you'd prefer a traditionally entertaining evening of storytelling, this play should probably be avoided lol.
Spoilers follow. . .
The artificially created computer people include all ages, genders and races. They are first seen as still images, later as moving images that mirror the movements of Crimp's face on stage, still later as moving images that take on a life independent from Crimp, and ultimately, only Crimp remains.
Since all the voices are written by Crimp, his own prejudices, about what he thinks these kinds of faces might say, are necessarily exposed, and perhaps he begins by treading carefully, giving the most awful thoughts and prejudices and stories to white males lol.
After all, this is dangerous territory, where, every time he voices a woman or a person of colour, he risks being accused of saying something controversial. For example, if he makes characters too pliant, conventional and agreeable, he might be accused of being patronising, but if he makes them unconventional and disagreeable, he might be accused of ascribing negative qualities to gender and race.
Crimp ultimately chooses the path of putting pretty much every voice and every attitude into every character, even babies lol, which allows him the escape of Matt Stone and Trey Parker, that by saying everything, he says nothing, by offending everyone, he offends noone.
Crimp has his characters make personal confessions about their deep drives, some absurd, some banal, some touching. He has them confess their hopes and dreams and strangeness. He explores everything he can think of about potential individual traits.
At times, the characters seem to melt away and there is only Crimp, as each character melds too quickly one into another for any of them to persist, and you are drawn to watch Crimp mouthing the words at the side of the stage instead, as watching the cinema images meld so quickly into each other risks inducing a headache.
At these times, Crimp reminded me of his evident inspiration, Andy Warhol, who he physically resembles, a shaggy, silver-haired, middle-aged canvas absorbing the whole world into himself. But whereas Warhol preyed on real characters in his orbit, Crimp preys only on his own imagination and memories of stories and impressions he has heard about people, including ones I felt I had heard before myself, but couldn't quite place lol.
At times, therefore, Crimp himself, in the act of creation, seems to dissolve away into non-existence, losing his own uniqueness, becoming just a blend of stories. In this sense, by creating so many hundreds of "unique" stories, Crimp gives the lie to uniqueness. He seems to imply that we are all just blank canvasses being written on, all essentially the same.
As a side note, the show also serves as a horror show warning of a future of deep fakery, where we'll cease to know if anybody really said anything, or whether everything we are watching is fake.
In any event, as far as experimental shows go, this is an excellent one, only detracted from by its relentless repetitiveness, one image after another, one character after another, seemingly forever.
4 and a half stars from me.
A cinema screen shows hundreds of computer generated, real looking, fake people, created by AI, which are all given voice by Martin Crimp, the author, himself.
There is no story as such, but there is a progression of ideas, reflecting on identity, culture wars, and what it means for an author to create characters.
It's endlessly fascinating, often repetitive, occasionally funny, always thought-provoking, but only if you want to think about the above issues, so if you'd prefer a traditionally entertaining evening of storytelling, this play should probably be avoided lol.
Spoilers follow. . .
The artificially created computer people include all ages, genders and races. They are first seen as still images, later as moving images that mirror the movements of Crimp's face on stage, still later as moving images that take on a life independent from Crimp, and ultimately, only Crimp remains.
Since all the voices are written by Crimp, his own prejudices, about what he thinks these kinds of faces might say, are necessarily exposed, and perhaps he begins by treading carefully, giving the most awful thoughts and prejudices and stories to white males lol.
After all, this is dangerous territory, where, every time he voices a woman or a person of colour, he risks being accused of saying something controversial. For example, if he makes characters too pliant, conventional and agreeable, he might be accused of being patronising, but if he makes them unconventional and disagreeable, he might be accused of ascribing negative qualities to gender and race.
Crimp ultimately chooses the path of putting pretty much every voice and every attitude into every character, even babies lol, which allows him the escape of Matt Stone and Trey Parker, that by saying everything, he says nothing, by offending everyone, he offends noone.
Crimp has his characters make personal confessions about their deep drives, some absurd, some banal, some touching. He has them confess their hopes and dreams and strangeness. He explores everything he can think of about potential individual traits.
At times, the characters seem to melt away and there is only Crimp, as each character melds too quickly one into another for any of them to persist, and you are drawn to watch Crimp mouthing the words at the side of the stage instead, as watching the cinema images meld so quickly into each other risks inducing a headache.
At these times, Crimp reminded me of his evident inspiration, Andy Warhol, who he physically resembles, a shaggy, silver-haired, middle-aged canvas absorbing the whole world into himself. But whereas Warhol preyed on real characters in his orbit, Crimp preys only on his own imagination and memories of stories and impressions he has heard about people, including ones I felt I had heard before myself, but couldn't quite place lol.
At times, therefore, Crimp himself, in the act of creation, seems to dissolve away into non-existence, losing his own uniqueness, becoming just a blend of stories. In this sense, by creating so many hundreds of "unique" stories, Crimp gives the lie to uniqueness. He seems to imply that we are all just blank canvasses being written on, all essentially the same.
As a side note, the show also serves as a horror show warning of a future of deep fakery, where we'll cease to know if anybody really said anything, or whether everything we are watching is fake.
In any event, as far as experimental shows go, this is an excellent one, only detracted from by its relentless repetitiveness, one image after another, one character after another, seemingly forever.
4 and a half stars from me.
