“We are a high definition human race.”
Technology has taken over our lives. It defines our friendships, dictates our love lives and intrudes on our family life. Its prominence is bolstered by a consumerist culture, propagated by greed. Our sense of free will is consistently compromised because due to the media, and due to advertising, it is difficult to establish whether a decision is made by our own minds or as a result of subliminal messages.
Yes, we get it: it is all profoundly negative, but is sold to us as something positive. "The world is at your finger tips!” “We are living in the modern age!” et.al. This is not new information, but this discord is the subject matter of Golem, the latest production from 1927, a company whose work innovatively combines Tim Burton-esque animation with quirky performances and live music.
In the story, we follow the life of Robert Robertson, a man at the height of the mundane in a seemingly pointless job, backing up technological back-up with pencil and paper. He is in a politically driven rock band with his sister, but in all their years they have never played a single gig. He enjoys visiting his friend’s shop and buying his inventions, even though they inevitably break after a week. That is until he invents the Golem – a man made of clay who obeys all of its owner’s commands, but is the embodiment of the consumerist, technology-mad mentality as yet undiscovered by these characters. From here, Robert’s sense of himself spirals out of his own control, taking his work and his home life with it.
The style of the piece is extraordinary, in its composite parts. The animation that creates the world that the performers move in is fun and intricately drawn, and the music, in both performance and score, is both haunting and delightful. The performers themselves, all clipped vowels, exaggerated physicality and futuristic costumes, are truly remarkable. But once we have established the novelty of the work, there is very little left for us to discover, particularly within a storyline that projects towards the world we already know.
There are some genuinely thoughtful, provocative elements to the piece, for instance the fact that for the most part, the animations run from right to left, hinting that the ensuing decisions and events are a backward step for humanity. Within this, it is interesting that the Golems are always male - prominent genitals and all - and of the characters we see on stage, it is only men who own one. As an added layer, applause resounded in the audience when the Golem tells Robert that his love interest, Joy, is just a frumpy 35-year old who will try to manipulate him into having children, and that he can do better.
In these moments, the piece is surprising, and successfully articulates issues beyond the foundations of the emptiness of newness that comes with the 21st Century. But otherwise, it communicates that emptiness all too well, and the perpetual boredom that precedes the perpetual upgrade of our lives becomes a mainstay mood of the piece. I just wanted the piece to upgrade, beyond the occasional new App.
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