Now on stage at Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst Street, Toronto
“Fine vocal and physical work from its two main actors provides a simple, unsettling, and sometimes confusing exposition of how artificial intelligence is devolving our human existence into the banal and mundane.”
Let’s face it, Skynet is coming. As depicted in the post-apocalyptic world of James Cameron’s cult sci-fi film, ‘The Terminator,’ computers are taking over our world, and it seems there’s a conscious mind driving it all.
There’s nowhere we can go, nothing we can touch, nothing we can watch where that doesn’t somehow connect us to a network. Our computers, our phones, our tablets and TVs. Virtually everywhere you look, a computer is making our lives easier – or is it? Is the digital world a boon to humanity, or is the internet ruining our brains, distorting our reality, defiling our privacy, and ingesting it like a drug?
That’s what “Honey, I’m Home” posits, and the answers are ambiguous. What are we sacrificing while giving in to this techno-narcotic, the World Wide Web? Ours is a world where we don’t have to turn on or off our lights, write essays, go grocery shopping and even drive our cars. We’re slowly losing our bodies to the likes of Alexa, virtual reality and Zoom meeting rooms. Will our physical selves soon fade into oblivion as the internet replaces our collective conscience?
Two dynamic and engaging performers start the show. We are in the “Forget Me Not” convalescent home. A quirky and excentric nun or nurse/caregiver (Lauren Gillis) stands next to her catatonic patient (Alaine Hutton), who sits listlessly looking off into space, vacuous and void in mind and spirit. We are told the patient had been found in her vegetative state years before in a storage locker. She’s shown no sign of improving, but we are told there’s a reason she’s like this, and perhaps we can get through to her through music or perhaps some other form of stimuli. Some silly singing ensues, but it’s all for not. Our patient is still comatose.
We are whisked suddenly into the dull work-a-day world of Janine (Alaine Hutton, again), where automation has left her the only human in the office. Her job is mind-numbingly tedious and the only time she interfaces with others is through a computer screen. She heads home nightly to the same apartment, the same stresses, the same thoughts of anguish. After a few short hours of sleep, starts again the next day. At her wit’s end, she takes advantage of her company’s upgraded “wellness” package. She uploads her consciousness into her home to escape her excruciatingly mundane existence and seek digital stimulation. But her slow Wi-Fi cannot keep up, and soon Janine learns through a chatty chatbot that things are not as they seem, and her life as a self-generated disembodied avatar in the digital realm may be permanent.
This production doesn’t chart new ground in terms of its storytelling. The message isn’t new or groundbreaking if you have any connection to today’s world. What it is mostly is a dark, absurdist, cautionary tale with drips of humour and silly moments of obscurity.
This is a low-budget, bare-bones production, and it seems intentional. Staging, props and costume designs by Lester Trips (Theatre), Lauren Gillis and Alaine Hutton) are a clever contrast to the complexity of the digital subject matter. The small stage is bare save for a recumbent seat made of several chairs turned topsy-turvy. Two tall panels, one with a window cutout near the top, stand upstage. A coat rack serves as Janine’s apartment while her suit is black, colourless and unalluring – testaments to her vapid existence—all clever choices.
Equally as clever is André Du Toit’s inspired lighting design. For a small, black box space, his choices are excellent. From Janine’s office, lit only by a computer screen, to her apartment, using downstage footlights to create harsh shadows, to the inescapable AI world, using cool blue flashing lights, strobes and funky gobos, we always know where to look and how to feel. Music and sound effects courtesy of S. Quinn Hoodless is ethereal and loud enough to shock without bursting ear drums.
As Janine and the unnamed catatonic patient, Alaine Hutton is remarkable. She’s mute throughout but her power to communicate physically is sublime. Her face is a frozen visage, like a robot, while her body runs the gamut from stillness to grotesquery. Her mastery of her physical self is a joy to watch. My only quip is that I wasn’t always sure when she was which character or whether her characters were one and the same.
As the “nun” character and Janine’s uploaded conscience, Lauren Gillis matches her partner’s intensity with outspoken humour and whimsy, but she’s never one-dimensional. Her terror and frustration locked in her digital world is palpable. Kudos to her very fine, but very random, soprano singing voice, too.
Amy Blumberg appears as a large balletic rodent, a fellow avatar whose existence mirrors Janine’s own horrors but seems able to escape her virtual prison.
“Honey, I’m Home,” though not revelatory, is relevant theatre notwithstanding. It’s up-front about our human condition in this era of AI, our overreliance on the internet, and why, despite its dangers, we just can’t stop looking at it.
To quote Star Trek’s, Mr. Spock, “Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no desire to serve under them.” That quote was made 56 years ago! Is the rise of the machines closer than we think?
Running time: Running time, 70 minutes with no intermission.
The production runs until December 1 at Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst Street, Toronto.
For tickets call the Box Office at 416-504-9971 or email: https://www.factorytheatre.ca/shows/honey-im-home/#tickets
“Honey, I’m Home”
Written, performed and directed by Alaine Hutton and Lauren Gillis
Produced by Lester Trips (Theatre)
Set, costumes and properties designed by Alaine Hutton and Lauren Gillis
Lighting designed by André du Toit
Sound and additional compositions designed by S. Quinn Hoodless
Performers: Alaine Hutton, Lauren Gillis, Angela Blumberg
