Humanity is living underground. They cannot visit the surface without respirators, but every need is met by the Machine. Vashti lives across the other side of the world from her son, Kuno, but they can communicate via instant messaging. Mostly, though, time is passed by people sharing knowledge and listening to lectures. Sometimes they listen to music, if it doesn’t get in the way of learning.
The Machine
Stops is a
post-apocalyptic, science fiction short story by E.M. Forster, better known for
works like Howard’s End and A Room with a View. It was written in
response to H.G. Wells’ A Modern Utopia, a complex, layered novel
describing a distant planet – a mirror to Earth, where humanity has achieved a
kind of equality without regard to contemporary ideas of gender and race.
Forster’s story is a dystopia that worries about humanity’s increasing
dependence on technology.
I first
heard about The Machine Stops during the lockdowns in 2020, because the
story describes a humanity isolated from each other that can only communicate
through the machine. Forster describes a technology that is effectively the
internet and “face time” with a nod to online lecture series like Ted Talks. It
communicates the notion of a society mesmerised by the Machine because it
provides people with basic needs like fresh air; a civilisation that has evolved
beyond face-to-face connection or the need for human touch.
Director Briony
Dunn has adapted the short story for the stage and her production is very
deliberately structured around the restriction of movement and the paucity of
human connection. The space, designed by Dunn and Niklas Pajanti, is cold and
sterile. Sixteen large metal rods hang from the ceiling creating a grid. A single
chair sits to one side, far away from where we first see performer Mary Helen
Sassman. Eventually she will make her way there.
Sassman is standing
at the back of the stage when the audience first arrives, but she is hard to
see: a set of lights on the audience obscure our view. A very slow fade hints
that something is about to happen and as we quieten, Sassman moves, very
slowly. Very deliberately and very slowly. At first, her hands to her side, the
only way to even perceive movement is from her relative position to the back
line of poles.
After a few
minutes, her hands leave her sides and her fingers start to flutter. She
continues to shuffle forward, but there is more movement in her hands that in
her feet. It’s mesmerising and, after a long while, excruciating. The tension
of this peculiar opening is only broken by a wave of lights suggesting that she
is being monitored or scanned. Pajanti’s lighting makes the metal poles look flexible
or impermanent. After watching the glacial movements of Sassman, Pajanti’s
design shakes things up. I felt a kind of vertigo or seasickness that was thrilling.
But that lasted just a moment.
Sassman’s
performance of a woman alone, underground, separated from her son and only connected
to the outside world by digital communication is compelling. The use of her
body to inch forward, with the occasional turn of her face into a silent
scream, helps us to feel how trapped she is, even while she acts happy to be sharing
information and giving lectures. Dunn’s decision to build the show
around this very particular type of movement performance becomes repetitive
after a while, bordering on soporific. The tone of the show rarely changes. Humour
is almost completely absent.
Patrick
Livesey appears as the son only briefly throughout and those moments of
connection are a welcome relief from the utter stillness and remoteness of the
rest of the piece, but it was not enough to arouse any particular emotion in me
for these characters. The dialogue in the show is exposition-heavy; illuminating
situation over character.
The interesting
ideas of Forster’s story are alluded to and the concept is sound, but for me, in
execution, this production is driven so singularly by images, I found it
increasingly difficult to stay focused. It was a long seventy-five minutes.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
The Machine Stops was on at Theatre Works for a week and closed last night.
Photos: Hannah Jennings
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