Life Finds a Way is a series of three short plays written, directed, acted and everything else by some very independently-minded UCol students.  

The design is a bit baffling.  The floor is covered in roughly stitched white sheets, which also cover a single table.  Given that the rig in the 93 Kelburn Parade space is pretty shallow, there’s a lot of glare in the audience’s eyes all through.  And the looping sound cue at the start seems incorrectly cued, with a clear hitch every 90 seconds or so.  It keeps making me think the action is about to start. 

First up is a playlet in which a scientist and a bureaucrat create an artificial intelligence named April.  The playlet is trying hard to be a combination of George Bernard Shaw, Edward Albee, and Aaron Sorkin: a discussion of “what is consciousness?” or perhaps, “what is a soul?”  Everything is heavy – laden with meaning and philosophical implications. 

Unfortunately, any attempt at depth is foiled by the writing.  The script is hampered by events that move too quickly for anything but the most cursory examination, an almost complete lack of characterisation and simplistic, undifferentiated viewpoints on what constitutes ‘emotions’ or ‘intelligence’. 

The overly-busy plot pushes April from nascent programme all the way to fully-formed fembot.  While the bureaucrat and the scientist want April to be a teacher and researcher, April wants to be a rather vapid 20 year old girl, all searching for Romance and concerns about her weight, even when she is still a disembodied computer programme.

This characterisation pushes my feminist buttons so hard.  It would be different if one of the scientists were also a woman, or we were shown April accomplishing any task not directly related to her search for romance, but we aren’t.  Nope, the only thing this hyper-intelligent supercomputer wants is her man.  It makes Ultron from the Avengers films look logical; at least he had ambition.

As a result of the busy plot and lack of substantial focus, the script is flooded with what my friend Charlotte calls “as you know, you are my brother” exposition, and the arguments boil down to little more than “humans are not just biological computers!” v “humans are too biological computers!”

Given there is so little real conflict written into the scenes, there isn’t much for the actors to do, certainly not in its current TV drama staging. The actors lean instead on their habits.  Ashleigh Matheson searches for some shred of emotional truth or excitement, but mostly goes into an unsupported head voice.  Jack Edens paces, and everyone looks at the floor instead of each other.

The second play takes place in the radio station of a chronically under-stocked bunker, where the (presumably) last humans try to eke out an increasingly desperate survival.  

There is at least some differentiation between what is heavy and what can be handled with some levity.  Tobias Lockhart, in particular, brings an uncannily Uther Dean-esque cheery cynicism to his portrayal of one of the two radio personalities, and Matheson finds a disgustingly chirpy counterpoint.  Her unflinching optimism as her public service announcements reveal scarcer and scarcer supplies complements Lockhart’s more knowing delivery.

There are also two assistants (Jessica McLean and Simon Dewar) who slowly discover the lies all around them.  First they find that the all clear light, which is meant to go green when it is safe to go out, is painted red; then they discover that none of the cables are plugged in.  These discoveries would mean more if they didn’t refer to props or bits of set that we’d previously been asked to overlook or excuse; we’ve been ignoring unplugged cables and painted lights from the get-go.

While the assistants storyline is probably unnecessary, the setup of happy /businesslike broadcasters continuing in the face of their own demise is a classic.

Every time the scenes swap, there’s a not-quite-blackout as the actors drop all character and shuffle to their next positions.  We as an audience are expected to ignore this, presumably. 

There are creative ways to get around the need for blackouts.  Have the assistants move to their next spots in slow motion during the broadcasts, perhaps.  Or have one group freeze while the other talks.  But these require thinking outside the television and into the theatre. 

The third playlet is the most detailed in its writing, referring back to concrete events in the scene, and it also observes Aristotle’s unities.  Normally I don’t give a crap about Aristotle, but the unbroken action allows for competition to develop and more complex scene to emerge.  The actors seem more relaxed as well, with more varied postures, vocal differentiation, and eye contact. 

In it, first a James Bond type spy (Dewar), then an earnest priest with a Sean Connery accent (Edens), and finally a wizard (McLean) fight over who gets to claim Matheson’s young woman, who is the Chosen One for each of their causes. 

It is a clever concept and without television pressures, the actors relax and I start to see some sparks of interesting performance.  Matheson finds some gratifying moments of power as she holds everyone at bay.  McLean and Dewar both make some interesting (if bizarre) vocal choices and their switches from high status to low provide some of the biggest laughs of the night.

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