The human race is on the brink of big change—if you listen to technologists—and artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the big movers and shakers that will change all of our lives, whether it’s in the automaker Tesla’s new auto pilot mode or autonomous computers that can maintain casual conversation.
The blurred line between humanity and technology is explored in a new play by Los Angeles-based actor and playwright Jeffrey Jackson, titled Two Point Oh. The play is the Lompoc Civic Theatre’s (LCT) first production of the year, showing now through March 6.
The plot revolves around a dynamo software designer named Elliot Leeds, whose private jet crashes over the Pacific Ocean, leaving his wife, Melanie, a grieving widow. Melanie’s mourning is interrupted, however, by a failsafe piece of software designed by Elliot, an AI program he wrote to emulate himself, that fires up and begins interacting with her via the home’s computer.
“The play begins with the husband Skyping his wife from the jet,” explained LCT’s director for the show, Larry McLellan, “but when he starts communicating with her after he dies, through the program, it takes a while for her to figure out whether Elliot is really dead or not.”
The program, aptly named Elliot 2.0, appears and acts so much like her dead husband that Melanie must deal with the profound implications of interacting with the program. It gets especially complex when the program begins learning, showing emotion, and even connecting with her in more ways than her living husband did.
To achieve the wizardry in the plot, some real-life tech skills have come into play as well, McLellan explained. The actor portraying Elliot 2.0 is performing live, he said, but must achieve the entire performance off-stage.
“The big challenge for me is—and I can handle complicated sets, millions of props, fast costume changes, etc.—but I am not a tech person,” McLellan said. “So I have been 100 percent reliant on someone else to make this all happen, my tech director, David Gertig.”
The Lompoc Civic Theatre has a trailer for hauling set pieces to and from dinner theater performances, McLellan explained, which will house Christopher Ford, the actor portraying the character and program. All the necessary tech will be in the trailer outside the venue—the intimate Stone Pine Hall in Lompoc—with a large bundle of wires and cables leading through the backstage and into the screen onstage.
Other than the incredible work involved in meeting the technological demand, the set is actually quite minimal, McLellan said, which works nicely for such a cerebral, character-driven play.
“He isn’t alive, but he really wants to be alive, and he wants to still have a family with his wife,” McLellan said. “First, he can see through only the computer screens in their home, but then he starts seeing Melanie through her cell phone, so he spies on her when she leaves the house.”
The program even gets to the point of jealousy when Melanie—played by LCT newcomer Sarah Raines—begins meeting with the co-founder of Elliot’s company, Ben Robbins, played by Matt Wilson.
Things get dicey among the characters, living and virtual, McLellan said, and the show includes some adult language, which LCT wants audiences to be aware of before coming to the show.
“If we warn everyone, then people who are offended by that type of language probably won’t come, and therefore we can keep the artistic integrity that the playwright intended,” McLellan said. “It’s extremely contemporary because of the role of artificial intelligence and how technology actually changes people’s lives.
“Since I got involved in the Lompoc Civic Theatre, I’ve tried to find everything from murder mysteries to regular civic theater repertoire like silly comedies, but I’ve always liked contemporary stuff more than the classics,” he added, “and that’s how I’ve been involved, is getting them to do things they haven’t tried before, and this is the best example of that.”
Arts Editor Joe Payne is both intrigued by and terrified of AI. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 25 – Mar 3, 2016.