Composer-songwriter-singer Ethan Lipton and Ian Riggs on bass in the musical We Are Your Robots at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center. This photograph and banner photo by HanJie Chow.
We Are Your Robots, composed and performed by Ethan Lipton, is the perfect answer to the question “What do humans want from their machines?” Directed by Leigh Silverman, this musical about artificial intelligence arrives at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center like a breath of fresh air.
Its conceit is that Lipton and his bandmates of 20 years—Vito Dieterle, Eben Levy, and Ian Riggs—are musical robots who look and sound just like themselves. Reportedly the show is modeled on the scientific demonstrations often employed to prove the capacities of artificial intelligence. Lipton, in the persona of a doctor, treats the audience as his patient and ends up counseling it on machines and how technology doesn’t have to be its nemesis. Indeed, machines potentially can make humans more human.
Band members Vito Dieterle (left) and Ian Riggs in We Are Your Robots at the Polonsky Center. Photograph by HanJie Chow.
We Are Your Robots is the first of Lipton’s band shows that is not centered on his own personal experience. His cracker-barrel chronicle No Place to Go and sci-fi song cycle The Outer Space (both directed by Silverman), which played at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater to much critical acclaim, were delightful navel-gazing pieces on the ignominy of unemployment and gentrification, respectively. His current show is a real departure for Lipton, requiring him to stretch his theatrical muscles in a new direction.
The stage has been transformed into a laboratory demonstration room (set by Lee Jellinek), with its dominating prop being “The Screens.” They serve as backdrops for projections (by Katherine Freer) of words thought by the audience and then reflect all back to them. In short, The Screens are a sort of Big Brother, an Orwellian computing system that is “harvesting” data from the audience via their phones, faces, and postures. (“Did I see a Peter Brook play here once?”)
In this show’s opening number, Lipton argues that he and his fellow robots are the audience’s friends. Even though they are programmed to get vital information oozing from the spectators before them, they are there to serve us:
We are your robots,
And we are here to serve you,
But first we need an answer
To a very simple prompt
What do you want, my human friends, what do you want?
There are no villains in Lipton’s musical. But gray areas exist in artificial intelligence, prompting some profound questions. A case in point: Do robots have a consciousness? Lipton explains that this question is rooted in “panpsychism,” the belief that all things have a consciousness. He explains that this idea goes back as far as Plato, and that it made a big splash 50 years ago when the philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote about it in his essay “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” Lipton then launches into his song “To Be a Bat,” its lyrical simplicity veiling one of the universe’s deep mysteries: “There is something that it feels like to be a bat / And there’s something that it feels like to be you.”
Band member Eben Levy on guitar in We Are Your Robots, directed by Leigh Silverman. Photograph by Hollis King.
Part of the charm of this musical is that Lipton presents himself as a robot who is relatable. He understands people’s fears about technology, and brings them into the open. In fact, he arguably confronts one of the biggest concerns people have about robots: they threaten their job security. But then Lipton deadpans that robots will never replace humans in that most demanding—and often unpaid—job: raising children.
While Lipton mostly sings and patters during this 80-minute show, he does have one parlor trick up his robotic sleeve. In fact, he asks one of his fellow robots: “What is 13 to the ninth power divided by 241 million?” His fellow robot retorts: “Reggie Jackson.” If this seems like a non sequitur, it isn’t. If one rounds off the given computation, the answer is 44, which so happens to be the jersey number worn by legendary Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson. Lipton then strategically uses Jackson’s immortal record to remind everyone that our personal data, our algorithm, also will be left behind in perpetuity, all thanks to artificial intelligence.
There are 11 catchy songs peppered throughout the musical. The best song by far was “Eighty Percent of the Time,” a down-to-earth ode that serves as a realistic reminder that human happiness often hovers closer to eighty percent than to the hundred percent mark.
Although Lipton conspicuously leads as the vocalist, the band jazzily ramps up the show, with Levy on guitar, Riggs on bass, and Dieterle on saxophone. There’s no question Lipton hits the bull’s-eye with We Are Your Robots. It’s smart, funny, and right in step with the times.
A co-production of Theatre for a New Audience (262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn) and Rattlestick Theater, We Are Your Robots plays at Polonsky Shakespeare Center through Dec. 8. Evening performances are 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; there is no performance on Thanksgiving Day. For more information, visit tfana.org.
Book & Lyrics: Ethan Lipton
Music: Eben Levy, Ian Riggs, Vito Dieterle & Ethan Lipton
Direction: Leigh Silverman
Scenic Design: Lee Jellinek
Lighting Design: Adam Honoré
Sound Design: Nevin Steinberg
Costume Design: Alejo Vietti
