AN UNCANNY PERFORMANCE FROM ALEX PODULKE
In Thomas Gibbons’ Uncanny Valley, directed by Tom Dugdale, Alex Podulke plays Julian, a sophisticated artificial human, who was created for the purpose of having his mind implanted with a dying billionaire’s consciousness in order that the billionaire may live on. Claire (Barbara Kingsley) is the neuroscientist tasked with teaching Julian how to be, or appear to be, human; all the action takes place in her office (the functional set is by Jesse Dreikosen).
At first Julien is merely a head on a desk. Claire instructs him to open his eyes, smile, blink. In the next scene he has acquired a torso, then one arm, then two, and then legs. The excellent Mr. Podulke is thoroughly convincing as an android learning to become a man. His initially rigid facial expressions and awkward movements get smoother and more natural as his development progresses, until he is almost indistinguishable from us, with only the slightest hints here and there, minor affectations one might say, that remind us of what he really is. But what is he, really? This is the question at the center of Uncanny Valley. What is consciousness? What does it mean to be human? Is there a difference, for example, between being pleased and giving all the indications of being pleased? And what does being pleased actually mean?
Though not terribly revolutionary—we’ve seen and read other, sometimes better, versions of this story—the first two-thirds of the play work well, in part because we don’t yet know why Julian was built. But when we find out that a billionaire had him commissioned to serve as a vessel for this unseen billionaire’s own consciousness, I become skeptical.
It would be one thing if they were going to transplant the billionaire’s brain into Julian. Then sure, the dying old man gets a new body and his life is extended by 200 years. Instead, what these scientists are doing is creating a databank of all of the old man’s thoughts, and then downloading them into their android. This, from the billionaire’s point of view, wouldn’t make any sense. Sure, Julian will have all of his memories, be exactly like him perhaps, but he will still be a different entity, and the old man will still die.
But that aside—billionaires don’t think like you and I—in the last scene, which takes up about a third of the play, much of what had been so carefully, so thoughtfully built up over the course of the show, falls apart. It’s difficult to say whether this is for lack of time or ideas. The end certainly feels rushed. Established themes are left dangling, new themes of questionable relevance pop up out of nowhere, and cracks appear in characters’ emotional and dramatic logic. Perhaps this is the result of Mr. Gibbons wanting to wrap things up quickly. But my feeling is that when Julian “becomes†the billionaire, that should be the meat of the story, not its conclusion.
photos by Seth Freeman
Uncanny Valley
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scheduled to end on October 26, 2014
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