Review: AI May

AI May is an impressive debut production by Embodi Theatre; a clever play with strong female characters and excellent production values. If you manage to snap up one of the remaining tickets expect an evocative soundscape (wonderful work by Freddy Komp, Multimedia & Sound Designer), fantastic set design (alone worth seeing for Bill Haycock’s Set & Costume Design, with lighting design by Geoff Squires), multicultural references, and a great use of Chinese and English surtitles that not only help the audience navigate the bilingual performances but also ensure that the hard of hearing can enjoy the show.

Amy Chien Yu Wang (Director, Playwright and Lead Producer) has created a play that draws on lived experience of loss in a new work that benefits from the expertise of Helen Strube (Dramaturg/Creative Producer). Structured around Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ pattern of ‘five stages of grief’ (denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), the play focuses on the contrasting ways in which the sudden death of the 20-something May Chen is mourned by her traditional Asian Mother and by May’s Caucasian boyfriend.

The playwright envisages a futuristic 2035 Brisbane, where artificial intelligence (AI) will be part of the everyday and technological advances will enable a grieving Jeremy/JJ (Justin Ryan) to build a ‘lifelike’ AI version of May (Clarise Ooi), as a robotic ‘grief companion’ to help Mrs Chen (Anna Yen). It soon becomes clear that this is no mere altruistic act. JJ is continually seeking more data (‘why do I only have 6 minutes of data’), so that the Robot might ‘learn how to become May’—whereas Mrs Chen appears to be suffering from a surfeit of ‘data,’ when replaying memories of her many conversations about how May should be a good daughter and must set aside dreams of living with Jeremy while studying to be a photographer.

Anna Yen gives a powerhouse central performance as Jasmine Chen—a bereaved mother who is grappling with overwhelming grief and guilt, while having to navigate the demands of work and of the public housing system. The casting of the talented Clarise Ooi in the title role is inspired, as Ooi is exceptional as both the living May and as her robotic re-creation. The video memory and flashback snapshots of May portray an enquiring child, a loving partner, and a young second-generation migrant who is seeking to find her own way—and the AI May robot has all the moves (Yuki Taniguchi, Movement Coach) and sounds similar-but-different to the human pattern.

I loved the many ways in which this new play interweaves aspects of Chinese culture and language with futuristic Queensland life, and the often-seamless ways in which members of the broader migrant community switch between languages, cultures and technologies. KeZhen Yi’s roles not only portray the human connection with Dr Tung that helps Mrs Chen through her grief, but also offer moments of comedy as the successful Mrs Lin, that stylistically align with Chinese theatre/operatic traditions. We are also encouraged to think about the names given to the title character, and how they might be interpreted. For example, the Mother refers to her child as ‘May May,’ but we also discover that in Chinese ‘Ai May’ might be read as ‘love May’ (an interesting alternative reading of ‘AI’).

I enjoyed this work, but there were a few occasions when I felt that perhaps we didn’t need to see everything that had been part of the development process. For example, the various Kübler-Ross ‘stages’ of grieving were portrayed though futuristic realism, and through separate moments of Butoh that were each portrayed against a strong background colour. While these dance pieces acted as ‘chapter headings’ throughout the piece, I would have preferred to experience the production without these moments—or even had the opportunity to see the extracted Butoh movements as a shorter prologue before the main play.

AI May encourages audiences to reflect on all that is human: to love, laugh, sing, dream, tell stories, cherish memories, and grieve. Let’s hope that by 2025 artificial intelligence will give us all more time to be truly human… although I’d also hope that there would be no need for women in their 60s to continue to work as ‘expert cleaners’ in other people’s homes. Here’s to more funds being allocated to develop robot cleaners, rather than robot grief companions… and to funding more new work by Amy Chien Yu Wang and Embodi Theatre.

Catherine Lawrence

**Picture (L to R)**: Clarise Ooi and Anna Yen, *AI May* (NOT a Creative Futures image. Source: https://piptheatre.org/ai-may/)

Audience information: AI May (17-27 October, 2024), PIP Theatre, 20 Park Road, Milton QLD 4064. 90 minutes (no interval). Recommended 15+. Adult themes including mental health themes of sudden death and grief, with limited sexual references. Warnings include the occasional onstage use of joss sticks/incense. Tickets $46-51.

The reviewer attended the 17 October 2024 preview performance.

Geoff Lawrence