Modern technology is nothing if not polarising, and An Echo in the Void from No Boundaries Theatrical Productions at Assembly Roxy, Upstairs, presents our worst fears and most selfish desires before the audience. I don’t mean hedonistic desires. I mean removing regrets, mistakes, and loss so we can forever keep the people we love the most.
Four strangers wake up in a void called Sanctuary. In fact, they wake up a few times, an existential horror questioning the nature of consciousness itself. But they finally wake up long enough to converse. Ivy is a journalist investigating this virtual technology. Toby is a soldier whose toast at his mate’s stag do began the play itself; he works for the corporation that built the consumer version of Sanctuary as their poster child for the program’s therapeutic recovery. Miranda is the CEO of the corporation behind Sanctuary, on a Captain Ahab-like quest to find the missing creator of Sanctuary’s original program. Arthur, Sanctuary’s creator, struggles with intense social anxiety but, through repeated use of the first version of his program, found himself able to engage with others long enough to sell his software to Miranda.
Occasionally, the four’s arguments and flashbacks are interrupted by what appears to be the program itself taking over, insisting the four ‘stop the suffering’. As a therapy program, Sanctuary is supposed to be doing just that, stopping the suffering of those prescribed its use by a (private) medical professional, so the four profess confusion at its insistence, blaming each other. Slowly, we learn each of their past losses causing their own suffering and see how the machine feeds on their stories to provide them the perfect false paradise. The program wants to end … but it cannot.
An Echo in the Void sheds light on real harms related to current technologies. Cory Doctorow, a sci-fi writer and tech critic, discusses modern tech firms’ marketing related to their ‘frictionless’ technology, the false promises of amazing experiences and a simplified life. This show draws heavily on that alleged frictionlessness and posits a concerning question about removing even more emotional friction.
Written and directed by Jason Weiss, starring Glasgow native Adam Sinclair as Toby, along with Grace Serrano as Ivy, Sunkrish Bala as Arthur, and Lee Rodriguez as Miranda, the simple black box staging of this techno-dystopia will leave you questioning your memories and desires.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
