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British playwright Alan Ayckbourn's romantic sci-fi farce Comic Potential envisions a future in which actors have been replaced by androids called "actoids." It's a concept that might not seem too far-fetched at a time when control-freak filmmakers like George Lucas have discovered that they can go to their computers and tweak an actor's sub-par performance with just a click of the mouse.
Comic Potential, which will open the City Lights Theater Company of San Jose's new season on Sept. 19, skewers technology, the TV industry and the histrionic acting and writing in soap operas.
Ross Nelson, director of the City Lights production, enjoys how Ayckbourn's futuristic take on the Pygmalion myth explores weighty questions about contemporary life in a comic setting.
"Is our technology getting ahead of us? Is there room for the human spirit? What makes a person a human being?" says Nelson, listing some of the play's questions about a future that's exactly like the present—save for the existence of robots that can pass for human.
An award-winning hit during its original 1999 run in London's West End, Comic Potential is set in a British TV studio, where washed-up Hollywood comedy director Chandler Tate (played by James G. Mantell) is put in charge of the all-actoid cast of the third-rate soap opera Hospital Hearts.
"This soap opera doesn't get the best actoids. They break down a little bit," says Nelson, who lists the actoids' recurring technical difficulties as one of the play's comic highlights.
Thrown into this chaotic environment is Adam (Bradford J. Shrieve), an aspiring screenwriter who wants to learn about comedy writing from Chandler, who also happens to be his idol. Adam becomes taken with cast member JCF31333, a.k.a. Jacie Triplethree (Jennifer Erdmann), an actoid who's in danger of being sent to the scrap heap because of her tendency to defy her programming and veer off the script. Adam sees comic potential in Jacie and wants to create a new TV series for her.
"Jacie exhibits some human qualities. She has a spontaneity to her. We don't know where it's coming from, but it's not being programmed," Nelson says.
Erdmann, who previously acted for Nelson in a City Lights production of another Ayckbourn play, Table Manners, recalls that Nelson wanted her and the other performers who play the soap's actoids to emphasize the human qualities of their actoid characters.
"Ross said at the auditions that he wants no robotics. He made it clear that he wants the android characters to seem like they could pass for human. But of course, there will be some weird quirks in the android characters because they have faults and technical difficulties every now and then, which should be funny," Erdmann says.
Erdmann has found that getting into the mindset of an android has been an interesting challenge. Her research has included observing the behavior of android characters in sci-fi movies and shows.
"I admit to watching some Star Trek to figure out how other people have handled that android thing," Erdmann says. In addition to the robot-bumbles-through-the-human-world shtick, Comic Potential also finds humor in its jabs at one of the most beloved—and ridiculed—TV genres, the daytime soap.
"It's been awhile since I've been really hooked on the soap opera thing. I used to watch General Hospital and All My Children," says Erdmann, who uses the acting in those soaps as an inspiration during Comic Potential's soap spoof sequences.
Was Nelson ever hooked on soaps also?
"Absolutely not!" Nelson laughs. "I don't think I've watched a soap opera since All My Children. But there's a style about it that I understand—a lot of close-ups and incredibly interesting acting."
'Comic Potential' will run Sept. 19-Oct. 19 at the City Lights Theater Company, 529 S. Second St., San Jose. Tickets are $15$22. For more information, call 408.295.4200 or visit www.cltc.org.
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