Reviewed by: Stage Whispers
Review by Mark Wickett | 15 March 2024
A play written by Google search suggestions and ChatGPT shouldn't be as compelling as this – it certainly shouldn't be so emotional. Yet what Zachary Sheridan and Karla Livingstone-Pardy have created from these unfeeling and non-judgemental sources is spellbinding. Mirroring the rabbit holes that are all too easy to disappear into when searching for something innocuous, the story is a skilful assembly of choices that Sheridan and Livingstone-Pardy have taken to provide not so much a narrative, as a stream of consciousness from unconscious algorithms. Its message is one of how, in an age of screens, we are more connected than ever before, just not so much to each other: we look to our technology for everything, including the resolution of our emotional distress. The play is not just reciting computer prompts: Sheridan is very physical (and funny) in demonstrating what they tell him to do, and his interactions with the physical objects around the set are touching. There are lots of clever metaphors in these actions that are better for not being fully explained. Unlike the search engine, we are going to have to think and feel these answers for ourselves.