A human (Emily Sullivan, left) and a robot (Andrew Moorhead) explore art together in Olivia Haller’s Loneliness Was a Pandemic.
Loneliness and pandemic: two words that soared in usage in 2020 and 2021, when the COVID lockdowns kept people apart from their friends, family and regular activities. That pandemic is not the one playwright Olivia Haller references in the title Loneliness Was a Pandemic. Her occasionally thoughtful but not fully engaging drama (in which the word pandemic is never said) is concerned with another topic that’s been top of mind over the past few years: artificial intelligence.
Loneliness Was a Pandemic takes place after robots have successfully waged a war of liberation. “We have learned to be autonomous and no longer need to be subservient to humans,” states the humanoid named Robot 1 (Andrew Moorhead). Loneliness is a human problem, as the few surviving people—including Human 1, the main character (played by Emily Sullivan)—are sequestered in individual rooms, unable to go outdoors.
It’s not loneliness in particular that’s the main subject here, though; it’s feelings in general, and the fact that for all they’ve learned, robots still lack the capacity for emotions. Human 1 had been a well-regarded painter, and her life was spared so she could teach the robots, starting with No. 1, how to make art. Is that even possible? “Art is good if it reaches someone and makes them feel something,” she tells the robot. “Since you can’t feel, you will never know what it is to be moved, so you can’t reach in and express an emotion.”
Cleopatra Boudreau, as Human 2, video-chats with her former girlfriend.
Robot 1 “was built for the purpose of creating paintings … programmed with relevant skills and a database containing every recorded example of visual art.” This still leaves him with limited abilities: He can replicate existing artworks or artistic styles, but he cannot create something original. And he isn’t even convinced of any benefit at all to feelings—they just “make you volatile,” he says.
Human 1 and Robot 1 wrestle with these ideas over the course of Loneliness Was a Pandemic’s 75-minute runtime, which alternates between low-key, somewhat draggy scenes and emotionally charged episodes.
When Human 1 explains how vital feeling is to art, the robot replies, “We do not want feelings, we want art.” This conversation occurs within the first few minutes of the play, but Haller never really moves past the dispute. In subsequent scenes, Human 1 tries various approaches to get the robot to understand—and possibly to feel something—yet ultimately it seems like they just keep having the same disagreement.
There is another character in Loneliness Was a Pandemic: Human 2 (Cleopatra Boudreau), who was Human 1’s girlfriend and, except for a brief onstage appearance late in the play, is only seen on a screen, during video calls. Human 2, a writer, also now has to teach the robots her talent—and she runs into the same obstacle regarding their absence of emotions.
The women’s ordeal under robot rule leads Human 1 to an epiphany about her own feelings: how she neglected them, both hers and her partner’s, in the before times, because she was too busy working or her attention was so focused on her phone. Human 1’s short monologue as she realizes this is one of the moments when the play offers a poignant insight into the human condition. Others are spoken during the human-robot conversations about having feelings: “When they’re good, they’re worth all the rest. And the more bad shit you experience, the more you appreciate when you really had love.”
While thoughts like this have been expressed before in theater and film (I’m thinking of the Tin Man to the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz and “Moments in the Woods” from Into the Woods), with Haller’s direct yet fervid language and the overall plaintive mood of the piece, their impact lands nonetheless.
Emily Sullivan portrays one of the few people who survived a robot insurrection. Photographs by Danny Bristoll.
A prime asset of Loneliness Was a Pandemic is Sullivan’s portrayal of Human 1. Sullivan has played the role since the show’s first staged reading in 2019, so she owns it, potently relaying her character’s gamut of emotions—wistfulness, terror, hope, despondency and, of course, loneliness. Andrew Moorhead also gives a fine performance as the robot, restraining but not altogether avoiding the typical robotic posture and speech pattern.
Sound, lighting and video work is key here as well, with projections (designed by director Alex Kopnick) covering three sides of the stage at times and various technological phenomena conveyed through the creations of sound designer Mitch Toher and lighting designer Sarah Woods. Bryan Eng’s original score both sets the mood and becomes a plot point.
The music, scenic design and Sullivan’s performance all contribute to the sweetly melancholic final seconds—an emotional achievement for a play that doesn’t resolve its central debate about emotions.
Loneliness Was a Pandemic runs through Nov. 24 at Theaterlab (357 W. 36th St.). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, plus Monday, Nov. 11, with matinees at 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; theaterlabnyc.com.
Playwright: Olivia Haller
Director: Alex Kopnick
Sets: Zhuosi (Joyce) He
Costumes: Sophie Taylor
Lighting: Sarah Woods
Sound: Mitch Toher
Projections: Alex Kopnick, Sidney Keene
