A new play coming to Williamsburg’s Brick Theater sounds like bad news for struggling actors.
“The Uncanny Valley,” which runs Oct. 8–19, is a Faustian story about a man who signs away his soul. And the star of the play is a “robot thespian.” That is right — a robot. He does not even have an Actors Equity card.
But the automaton actor isn’t just some gimmick, said the play’s writer and director — he is also the show’s inspiration.
“As I was playing with the robot, I thought of the idea of Faust, which is an old paradigm, and how to connect that to current day,” said Francesca Talenti.
Talenti, who is a media studies professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, borrowed the robot from the school’s computer science department after it bought the humanoid toy for $50,000. The machine can replicate a human’s face and mannerisms via video and motion capture tools.
“A lot of organizations use it for displays and to answer simple questions, but I thought I could use it for something more challenging,” she said.
“The Uncanny Valley” tells the story of Edwin, a young man who agrees to participate in a scientific study that requires him to upload his mind into a robot named Dummy.
Dummy’s face changes throughout the play. At first cartoonish, he ends up looking like a replica of lead actor Alphonse Nicholson.
Talenti spent months with the robot, figuring out how far she could push it and how much it could do. She learned that it could say a series of lines and could also react to what others said around it, meaning that it could “act” in a play.
But just like a real actor, the droid can be a diva.
“It is not perfect. We cannot trigger every single line,” said Talenti. “It is challenging.”
“The Uncanny Valley” at the Brick Theater [579 Metropolitan Ave. near Lorimer Street in Williamsburg, (718) 285–3863, www.bricktheater.com]. Oct. 8, 10–11, 16–18 at 8 pm, and Oct. 12 and 19 at 2 pm. $18.
