“Though AI has been trending hard this year, ’Prometheus Firebringer’ is the latest in a long line of Dorsen works on this subject...But while Dorsen may use AI, you know she’ll never abuse it. Behind the philosophical inquiries she puts onstage, there is real intelligence at play.”
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"Dorsen’s brief and brilliantly constructed theatrical essay is a bracing reminder that processing power isn’t imagination, nor is it discernment, effort, humor, or care. Perhaps even these things won’t save us, but they may at least keep us awake to the fact that something else is still, and always, possible."
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"Intellectually speaking, Dorsen’s points are compelling and well-taken. Theatrically speaking, it’s a desert on both sides of the stage...But if the master plan of this algorithmic theater pioneer is to leave you yearning for the holistic experience of ineffable human drama, it absolutely works."
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Somewhere there are rules for what theatre is supposed to do: it should entertain, it should instruct, it should provoke. To say that Annie Dorsen’s "Prometheus Firebringer" checks all the boxes is an understatement of what she has done here. It is a brilliant reactionary, and yes, even cautionary, piece that takes a 2,500-year- old play that doesn’t really exist anymore (what is left of it is the title and a fragment or two – the rest has been lost over time) and thrusts it into an exercise for the unwitting specter of Artificial Intelligence. The results are fascinating, yet unremarkable; provocative, yet giddy.
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Half of what happens in “Prometheus Firebringer” is extraordinary, unprecedented. But you wouldn’t know that just by watching what’s on stage … you need the other half of it, writer and performer Annie Dorsen sitting at a desk on the other side of the stage, reading aloud an essay that explains that everything Stage Right – the script, the heads, the voices -- is generated by Artificial Intelligence.
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“Dorsen makes a compelling case for the power of AI as both an innovative tool as well as a potential threat. Her show reflects that fundamental tension within just about every breakthrough technology, drawing us in even as it upends our deeply held convictions. She talks to the point, but where needed, allows silence for us to collect our thoughts.”
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