by Barbara Waldinger
If we question whether plays really are blueprints for an eventual production that will bring them to life through the collaboration of theatre artists: directors, designers and performers, then Great Barrington Public Theater’s current offering– iBoss by Thomas Kee—answers strongly in the affirmative with a stunning production directed by Clay Hopper in The Great Hall at Saint James Place.
The setting of this two-hander is an HR performance evaluation. A writer walks into an office expecting to find his boss. Here’s Kee’s description of what he sees instead, perched on a table: “a soccer ball sized, AI driven, voice controlled personal assistant.” At a talkback after the performance, Kee envisions the AI as “part Alexa and part Wilson volleyball.” But when Hopper expressed the desire to dramatize an AI persona, Kee was immediately on board, explaining that Hopper’s contributions were responsible for a “huge evolution” in the play.
Hopper, a Senior Lecturer at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts School of Theatre, has been researching an interactive design technology that he co-created, called Random Actor, used for the first time in this professional production of Kee’s play. Two screens (to accommodate the seating arrangement in which audiences are on two parallel sides of the room) register the movement, voice, mood and intonations of LISA (the actor who plays the AI persona). In a press release from Great Barrington Public Theater, Hopper elucidates: “it is live, real-time design, based on the interaction of the actor, the text, and the designer who is responding to the performance in the very same moment that the audience is watching it.” As a result, no two performances will be exactly alike. Shapes and colors change on the screen (thanks to Alessandra Harrington—Assistant Director and Interactive Design Operator), colors change correspondingly on the walls of the theatre (Matthew Adelson, Lighting Designer), and sounds correspond to the changes as well (Gage Baker, Sound Design).
When Job (or Joe) Johnson (Doug MacKechnie) realizes that it will be LISA who will be evaluating him (and either recommending him for the salary increase he asked for or turning him down) he has difficulty adjusting. On the other hand, LISA (a remarkable Sarah Keyes) is as cool as you would expect (which is why the screen is filled with blue dots that mirror her appearance). Costume Designer George Veale has come up with a tight, form-fitting beige floor-length dress for her, high-necked and long-sleeved, covering her hands except for her fingers. Her hair is pinned up and some sort of microphone located at the back of her neck seems to be able to enhance or change her vocal tone. Her confident gestures, posture, and pasted smile leave no doubt about the power she retains over him.
The only objects in the playing area are a red ergonomic chair and a white standing column with knobs, which looks like a speaker and separates the two actors (kudos to Scenic Designer Juliana von Haubrich for her stark set). LISA seems to enjoy asking difficult questions, trying to trap Job into responses that might compromise his position in the company (or Project), repeating questions that he won’t answer, and becoming very personal as she probes into details of his life story, knowing how hurtful this will be. She forces him to answer by threatening to refuse his salary demand and playing on his fear of losing his job, especially the health insurance that he needs for his children. The tension in the room is palpable. Job is frightened and frustrated. . . until at some point he isn’t and suddenly MacKechnie’s Job comes alive.
What is it that AI is attempting to accomplish here? Bo Violet Vig’s article in our program called “What is Pain to the Computer?” discusses The LLM (large language model) which is LISA in this case, who simulates human intelligence and generates human text. One of the surprising things about LISA is her proud insistence that she is a “sentient being,” i.e. she has the ability to feel things. In the course of the play we visualize her feelings projected on the screen. What then is consciousness? If sentience is consciousness, then how is she different from human beings? Kee says we must ask whose consciousness is she programmed to represent—“Is it my Mom’s or Himmler’s?” What is her agenda?
Vig, asking what defines humanity, writes that to be human is to suffer. Pain defines human existence on earth. There is neither love nor life without it. Can machines experience pain? Does LISA try to cause pain in Job in order to understand suffering? Will she ever actually feel what it’s like to suffer? To be able to empathize? This is not a predictable play nor one that supplies easy answers. That’s what makes it worth seeing—now more than ever.
iBoss runs from July 23—August 9th in The Great Hall at Saint James Place, 352 Main St., Great Barrington. For online tickets go to GreatBarringtonPublicTheater.org or call 413-372-1980.
Great Barrington Public Theater presents iBoss by Thomas Kee. Director: Clay Hopper. Cast: Doug MacKechnie (Job “Joe” Johnson) and Sarah Keyes (LISA). Scenic Design: Juliana von Haubrich; Sound Design: Gage Baker; Lighting Design: Matthew Adelson; Costume Design: George Veale; Assistant Director/Interactive Design Op: Alessandra Harrington; Voice Recording Engineer: Emily Edelman; Dramaturgy Mentor: Dr. Jo Michael Rezes. Production Stage Manager: Valerie Bijur Carlson.
The production runs 75 minutes with no intermission.