FROM SEXBOT TO SERVANT
The world premiere of The Made conveys a story of ownership, humanity and family connection with brilliant wit and insight.
Within Hannah Tasker-Poland’s broad range as a creative, dance and movement are at the heart of her practice. In the majority of her work, she demonstrates the human body’s remarkable versatility and range of motion. But in her role as cyborg Arie in Auckland Theatre Company’s production The Made, the character requires serious consideration of a different kind of physicality.
“It’s finding a way of having her be almost indistinguishable from humans, but there have to be little nuances that create that uncanny valley, between not quite being human but being so much more advanced than what we know of artificial intelligence or robots,” says Tasker-Poland.
The Made is the latest work from award-winning New Zealand author Emily Perkins. Audiences are taken to a near-future where service robots are commonplace and where brilliant scientist Alice (Alison Bruce) – an imperfect woman in midlife – is trying to create the perfect humanoid robot. The story details the power struggles Alice faces with her family, her career, her industry and ultimately her creation, former sexbot-turned-domestic servant Arie. “The AI that Alice has imbued her with means that she’s incredibly advanced, and has this spectrum of emotion that she’s able to feel,” says Tasker-Poland.
The play, commissioned by Auckland Theatre Company and directed by Colin McColl, explores the quandaries that come with artificial intelligence, be they question of ethics or of implications for humankind. “If a robot or an AI can feel human emotion, where do we draw the line?” says Tasker-Poland. “And what kind of ethical questions does that bring up as to how we treat these robots or how we navigate those relationships with robots, if there’s a blurring of what is being human and what is being artificial intelligence?”
Tasker-Poland says for a play that is centred around ideas of artificial intelligence, there remains a feminist message at the core of Perkins’ writing. “Weaving in all of this storytelling around [Alice’s] place in the world, as a female in science, the way that she’s navigating various things such going through menopause ... and then the themes and ideals around Arie – she’s this former sexbot, so she has been made and programmed to be ‘perfect’ in quotation marks, and has been programmed to interact with other humans in a way that absolutely will captivate them, but also panders to them,” she explains, giving the example of how this programming caused Arie to appear to display positive emotions only, as opposed to feelings like sadness or fear or anger. “[It] creates this very unsettling notion of how these sexbots were made to be a very passive form of high femininity, who service whatever sexual or erotic needs that people using them may be after,” she says.
“It brings into play this whole idea of the feminine body as well. The way in which Arie gets treated throughout the play by certain people, the way that she’s spoken about, I feel it really uncannily mirrors a lot of the historical ideas that have been placed on women or people who exist in a feminine body or present femininity or might embody ideals of sexuality or eroticism.”
“SHE IS NOT QUITE HUMAN BUT SO MUCH MORE ADVANCED THAN WHAT WE KNOW OF AI OR ROBOTS.”
HANNAH TASKER-POLAND
Those ideas are then paired with an exploration of the close relationship between Arie and Alice, and a tension bubbling beneath the surface. “You have that dichotomy of the slightly older woman who is nearing ... menopause with this young, sensual, sexual example of what people consider to be a perfect woman,” Tasker-Poland says.
The play presents Tasker-Poland with “a really rich challenge”, both in embodying this fascinating character and exploring these ideas of womanhood, but also in her work as a movement adviser for the show. Having worked with ATC on Lysistrata, Chicago and Cabaret, the performer is thrilled to back for this world premiere. “It’s a fascinating show that has a lot of facets to it and will appeal to a really diverse range of people.” The Made, 20 September - 8 October, 2022. atc.co.nz