Inspired by aesthetics and narratives similar to Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell, DRONE at Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance Two) features a single performer (Gladstone Mahib) onstage operating voice modulators, live video feeds, music, and an AI video filter program while also telling the audience the story. It is a feat to manage all these inputs at the same time, even with some elements pre-recorded, and the dexterity itself is worth watching, though the storyline rings hollow.
The audience is told, through both a printed handout while standing in line and through projections on screen, that humans and ‘machines’ (artificial intelligences which can inhabit robotic bodies, but not exclusively) coexist on the planet as, legally, fully fledged entities. The main character, DRONE, an original high-quality prototype from Softcore Engineering used to train their other AI, is in love with her human psychotherapist Dr Robert Stoner, who drugs her in order to steal her data. DRONE is also romantically entangled with a copy of herself, CONSOLE, who is DRONE’s mirror and only backup. Drone further becomes romantically entangled with GC, a sentient coffee machine from Generic Coffee, who is part of the robot resistance against human exploitation. DRONE realises what is happening to her and… if you’ve seen Metropolis or Terminator or any number of other ‘evil robot’ movies, you have an idea how it ends.
DRONE’s staging is a media pastiche: one human, AI video filters, a video call, animations, techno music. It is an impression of the provided plot, rather than a strict linear retelling of the story. Some of the elements, like the exploitation of robots, corporate data theft, and emotional manipulation, are all real issues happening to humans, caused by humans, right now, so the machines in DRONE are, as machines in media always are, representative of our current societal struggles. And, like so many science fiction stories where robots are metaphors for us, the robots cause death. Writer/director Dmitry Melkin may not intend this to be a fable, but it is a moral warning.
Interesting technology aside, DRONE struggles to fully tell its story. The show only runs about 40 minutes, but DRONE manages some lengthy internal monologues that don’t move the plot forward. Voice modulation was not different enough to fully discern unique characters. There’s no real reason for so many sexual references. The opening scene is DRONE and a robotic nail technician at a salon, but it is unclear why DRONE would need to get her nails done, or how she gets her nails done. The storyline feels violent and explicit entirely for shock value. It feels postmodern without going all in on postmodernism. It doesn’t add new ideas to the decades-long science fiction discussion.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
