REVIEW: Your Name Means Dream by José Rivera - Red Stitch

The word robot was created by playwright Karel Čapek for his 1921 play, R.U.R. or Rossum’s Universal Robots. It’s a story about industrialisation set in a far future world (around the year 2000), where robots have become essential to the growth of industry. The word derives from the Czech “robota” meaning forced labour or slavery.

Čapek’s idea of robots more closely aligns with our conception of androids (think replicants in Blade Runner or Cylons in Battlestar Galactica) and his play covers a lot of ground touched on by science fiction authors over the next century, grappling with life-like artificial intelligence. The key driver of the story is a robot uprising against their human masters, with central discussions about how much the robots think and feel; whether they are more than just appliances.

In José Rivera’s play Your Name Means Dream, Aislin is in her 60s and needs help around the house. Five employees have quit in the last six months, so her son, Roberto, has organised for delivery of a new service android name Stacy. Aislin is appalled that she’s going to be stuck with a machine – a toaster – when she craves human companionship. She still mourns the loss of her husband and isn’t coping well with her son and his family being estranged.

While the play treads well-worn territory, it does so with subtlety and grace. And while it plays out like a science fiction novella from the 50s – focused on character and concept, with societal change happening in the background, it’s firmly rooted in present-day concerns and trauma. It’s different watching a play about A.I. in human form in 2024, when the insidious online version is already scraping intellectual property and the internet to create terrible art and return awful, incorrect search results.

Red Stitch tops off an excellent year with this exquisite production, handled so delicately by director Kat Henry. Set in a rundown apartment in Manhattan’s Lower East side (a cosy but well-worn design by Hahnie Goldfinch), the audience is there with Aislin and Stacy while they negotiate their working relationship and burgeoning friendship. Stacy might just be a repository of knowledge early on, but the longer she spends with Aislin, the more human she becomes. For better and worse.

It's a striking tale about ageing and loneliness at the forefront, with concerns about self-awareness and self-determination supporting much of the story. At a time in her life when she is losing friends and family and her own independence, Aislin is slowly losing her sense of identity, as Stacy pieces together her own personality.

Caroline Lee and Lucy Ansell work hand-in-hand to paint two characters who – as Walt Whitman wrote in his poem “Song of Myself” – are large and contain multitudes. Lee is raging against the dying of the light, relentless in her investigation of her helper in a world that considers her invisible. Ansell shows great range as Stacy trips through various selves, trying to find one that fits. As she spits out old jokes, we get more than a hint of Groucho Marx. Later, Stacy shows she has an encyclopedia of dance inside her and Ansell acquits herself in style there as well.

Background news reports about how robots are changing the world and others are protesting for the good of humanity flesh out what’s happening outside the walls of the apartment, but never feel entirely necessary. It’s the back-and-forth drama between the two characters that keeps us compelled throughout.

The play asks questions about what these machines will replace – echoing the long-held concern of how automation will chew up and spit out low-paid workers. It is there in Čapek’s R.U.R. and it’s just as relevant now. Tech start ups have created gig culture and never seem concerned about how this has replaced reliable jobs for some workers with a pervasive need to hustle, hustle, hustle. Aislin opines that she might have upset her previous five carers, but what are they going to do for work now? They already had to work multiple jobs and take five buses to get to her.

Red Stitch gives us another intimate two-hander that has a wealth of heart and a lot on its mind. Science fiction on stage is a rare thing indeed, but this production continues a century-old theatre tradition and feels larger as a result. This production is full of life, all aspects of it. It’s joy and grief and humour and sorrow and songs and laughter and loneliness and togetherness and so much more.

Your Name Means Dream made me laugh and cry and at one particularly piercing moment of insight, I audibly gasped “fuck”. Not sure I’ve ever been moved to do that in a theatre before. Unforgettable.

- Keith Gow, Theatre First

Your Name Means Dream runs at Red Stitch until November 24 

Photos: James Reiser