INTERVIEW: In this futuristic world, an artist and robot make a connection
Photo: Loneliness Was a Pandemic stars Emily Sullivan. Photo courtesy of Danny Bristoll / Provided by Emily Owens PR with permission.
In the new play Loneliness Was a Pandemic, the future of the world looks a little different than today. In the years ahead, communities are only populated by artists, and the audience follows the journey of one painter who needs to teach a robot to make real art, according to press notes. The show, billed as a science fiction drama, is the work of writer Olivia Haller, known for [subtext].
The person tasked with bringing Haller’s words to life is director Alex Kopnick, known for a production of [title of show] at Under St. Marks. Joining Kopnick on this journey into the future are cast members Emily Sullivan (The Potemkin Play at HERE Arts Center), Andrew Moorhead (Radio Man with SheNYC Arts), Cleopatra Boudreau (MIA M.I.A at La MaMa) and Yi Ming Sofyia Xue (Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 at Shanghai Grand Theatre), according to an official news release.
Performances of Loneliness Was a Pandemic run through Nov. 24 at Theaterlab in New York City.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Kopnick about the world-premiere show. In addition to being a director, Kopnick is a producer, visual effects editor and actor-combatant. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What did you like when you first read Olivia Haller’s play?
I first came upon Olivia’s play in 2022, about two months into moving to New York. When I moved here, I knew less than 10 people. I was ill with COVID-19 when I found Olivia’s script on New Play Exchange, and I was isolated in a shoebox apartment in a way where I’d never felt more alone or trapped in my life. I connected with the script from its first page. Sci-fi has always been a genre I loved, and I feel it is an excellent lens through which to explore modern life.
Olivia’s play is bold, prophetic and deeply relatable. It speaks to the isolating disconnect exacerbated by technology and the COVID-19 pandemic, and at the time, I could have never predicted the poignancy of the play’s discussions of AI. I love the play’s humor, ambiguity and perspective. It’s genuinely one of the best scripts I’ve ever read, and I spent a year in college as an intern reading a hundred sci-fi scripts for a film company called XYZ Films.
Do you feel that the show has a lot to say about our current state of affairs in 2024?
Olivia has written a Play with the capital “P” in that at any time in modern history, this play has a lot to say. It’s so hyper-specific that it becomes universal again in the same ways we connect with Shakespeare’s work when that is effectively done in novel or contemporary settings.
It has undoubtedly aged like a fine wine since Olivia started writing it pre-COVID and pre-ChatGPT. The play’s discussion of the line between true art and machine learning expression is relevant today as SAG-AFTRA and the WGA continue to strike against the entertainment industry using AI to replace their art. That fight is currently being fought on the front of interactive media/video games.
Though we have more access to each other than we’ve ever had via technology communication tools, we’ve never been more disconnected or polarized as a society, mainly due to biased algorithms sequestering our digital community forums. We can all relate to this play’s themes of isolation and the yearning to connect with people who just can’t seem to empathize. I think this show will help many people feel less alone in some of the feelings they may not understand that others are experiencing on a massive scale.
Would you say your directing approach was based in reality, or given the subject matter, did you venture into the surreal?
My artistic mantra is that art inspires empathy, and empathy denies ignorance. I think theatre is one of the best tools for teaching empathy and helping others understand new human perspectives.
I would generally call my work fairly heart-forward, and I try not to delve into the surreal unnecessarily. The surreal facets of this piece lend themselves to the ambiguity of the narrative, and I want the audience to question what was real and in what way it was real, rather than being removed from the journey of the show through jarring disruptions from the “real” parts of the show.
The script is inherently surreal and is not a contemporary setting (though the present keeps getting closer to this show’s prediction of our future). My directing style for this project was an attempt to counterbalance the inherent aesthetic distance of the show’s concept and content with as much empathy as I could infuse. I am trained in the Meisner technique and utilized repetition exercises in working with my cast to build the muscles of immediate empathetic reaction, assessment and response so that they, as performers, could indeed be present with each other, respond truthfully to what they were given and remain adaptable in their performances despite the eclectic array of technologies we utilized to make Olivia’s script a theatrical world.
This flexibility also helped us navigate the minimal resources of an off-off-Broadway process, as the space and technology we had access to during the rehearsal weeks was a sliver of the reality of our production’s actual venue and technical design. The actor’s flexibility allowed our tech week to flow seamlessly despite requiring a sleepless level of effort and commitment on my and my production team’s end to build the show’s technology in a way that worked consistently and effectively.
What has it been like working with this cast?
This cast was a pleasure to work with. There was not a single member of our team who didn’t give everything they had to this collaborative artistic endeavor. Their trust in my leadership, and willingness to explore new theatrical methodology I introduced to the rehearsal process, was a joy, and I am so incredibly proud of what these artists have created in these roles.
Emily Sullivan, who plays Human 1, the show’s protagonist, is truly one of the best actors alive. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing her since I was pretty young, and we grew up in the same small town in Ohio. When I found out that she lived in New York, immediately after discovering this play, I knew I needed her involved. She has such an unfiltered, brave vulnerability to her work, uninhibited by the things that hold so many performers back from greatness. She discovers new choices each run and inspires the cast around her to do the same in truly amazing ways. I’m grateful she agreed to work with me on this show, and our production wouldn’t be the very special artistry it is without her. If she does not end up on Broadway one day, it will be the tragedy of a lifetime.
I’d worked with Andrew Moorhead before on a staged reading I co-directed for an early career program I founded called Theatre Write Now, and I have a deep appreciation for his dramaturgical sensibilities. He is such a considerate performer who wears his heart on his sleeve and is always eager to experiment and play the same way I am. He brought Robot 1 to life in a way I could never have anticipated.
Cleopatra Boudreau, who plays Human 2, is an excellent theater and film performer who has brought such a complex narrative to a character we only get glimpses of. Her ability to connect with Emily, even with half her scenes occurring via a live stream, and her willingness to embrace the ephemerality of such a complex, ambiguous character is a testament to her humanity and prowess as an actor. We went through an intensive casting process to find the perfect Human 2, and Cleo was a no-brainer as soon as she entered the callback room.
Yi Ming, our voice actor for Robot 2, is an outstanding professional who effortlessly created the voice we were looking for. The first time I listened to her self-tape submission, I could not believe I was listening to an unedited human. Our sound designer, Mitch Toher, did not need to do much work to polish Yi Ming’s recordings, and I think our audiences will be stunned by the uncanny nature of her artistic output.
Overall, this cast truly is the reason this show is worth seeing. Their talent, bravery and expertise made good performances a certainty, which allowed me, as a director/producer/projection designer, to focus on the complex technology I was implementing in the work without worrying about the acting faltering even for a moment.
How do you bring the robot to life on stage?
Andrew buried the lead when I offered him the role, and it wasn’t until he accepted the offer that he told me that his day job was writing AI language models for big corporations. He may actually be the most qualified performer alive to portray a robot on stage for that reason alone. It’s tough to play in-human characters in general, and what I was looking for out of Andrew was a moving goalpost, as I continually needed to shift the balance between human and inhuman until we found the perfect sweet spot.
This show is much more enjoyable when we build it by discussing what is taken away from humanity to create the perfect robot vs. what we add to technology to make it more human. Andrew’s thoughtful nature as an actor led to a great conversation about the nature of these robots and how they function. As I said, his dramaturgical prowess is something to be reckoned with. I gave him a list of media to engage with in the lead up to our rehearsal process, and we had many phone calls discussing how those pieces of art could inform or shouldn’t apply in some case, to the work of his Robot 1 portrayal. And he is an actor I could have dramaturgical conversation with until the cows come home. That said, after we created the imaginary circumstances for the characters, the focus was on helping Andrew to live them truthfully in the story. That’s where Meisner work became key.
Andrew had never experienced the Meisner technique before, and the neutrality and immediate assessment inherent to that work’s repetition exercises helped bring out the character I wanted to help Andrew build. It also helped him understand his cast mates, who he’d never met before, in ways that allowed the entire company to trust each other to make bold choices safely during runs. Andrew keeps discovering new facets of this robot, and it is truly a joy to showcase what he’s built with our audiences.
Given that pandemic is in the title of the play, does the show deal with the isolation and world-changing events of the COVID-19 pandemic directly?
As I’ve said, this show is prophetic. Olivia titled this work before the pandemic invoked the collective trauma of COVID-19. The show’s name is perfect for this story despite the accidental association with COVID-19. Many people have asked me to try to persuade Olivia to change the title, but that is not an idea I’d entertain for a second. This show could not have a better title. Loneliness Was a Pandemic is not a COVID play or about ChatGPT or any other modern topic. It is a play about interpersonal disconnect and yearning to connect with a world that feels cold and overly analytical.
I’ve had a Google alert for this play’s title since I acquired the optioning rights in 2022, and I cannot overstate my surprise at the number of articles and studies focused on just how isolated people are feeling. In fact, the World Health Organization declared loneliness an epidemic, and the U.S. surgeon general had described loneliness as “dangerous as 15 cigarettes a day.” Loneliness is tough to talk about, and many people then inherently feel like they are experiencing their isolation alone when the truth is we are all together in just how isolated from the community we have become.
COVID-19 helped speed up this disconnect, with the advent of Zoom calls replacing the in-person interaction that still exists in workspaces despite quarantine. Industry continues to discover new ways to be more cost-efficient by ignoring the humanity of workers, and COVID-19 inspired a set of advancements that have isolated and exploited workers. AI has now appeared and offers a parallel impact. Video calling and artificial intelligence are tools. We just need to be sure that we are using them instead of allowing them to use and exploit us, especially our most vulnerable populations.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Loneliness Was a Pandemic, directed by Alex Kopnick, continues through Nov. 24 at Theaterlab in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
