This is one of that rare breed of plays where the actor hasn’t seen the script before the play starts. A screen at the back of the stage presents a series of pieces of information to the audience: an actor will join us shortly called Martha. They haven’t seen the script before. That sort of stuff. Martha Watson Allpress indeed joins us shortly. She reads her instructions from the autocue and the play begins.

The concept is simple enough. An actor is invited to audition for a part. We see her audition. What happens next will be eerily familiar to all actors reading this. But what happens after that affords an eerie glimpse of the future that’s already here, courtesy of generative AI.

instructions by Nathan Ellis is a thoughtful, tongue in cheek, quasi sci-fi musing on where we might wind up if generative AI continues to develop in an unregulated environment. Martha delivers her instructions charmingly – and the scripted captions on screen toy enjoyably with the willing audience and the shattered fourth wall. Ellis’s neat direction incorporates enough movement into the production to keep the audience’s attention – and to explore the extent to which Martha is star, starlet or victim.

At the close of the hour long play, Martha’s presented with a moral dilemma – the same faced by artists across the globe as budgets are cut, theatre productions dwindle to monologues for the sake of economy and we’re left to question the responsibility that sits with the creator in this world in which robots are robbing creators daily – and the responsibility that sits with the audience. If we enjoy the content created out of others’ blood, sweat and tears, are we complicit in letting the robots rule?

instructions is at Summerhall – Old Lab until Mon 26 Aug 2024 (except Mon 12 & 19) at 13:10