FringeNYC 2013: Ex Machina

Review by Wesley Frugé · August 15, 2013

Ex Machina is a new play written by David Jacobi that attempts to be an enlightening evening on the subject of workers’ rights, and an entertaining odyssey about two men fighting against the machine, but ultimately needs more development to fully find its voice on both accounts.

Set in a non-descript smartphone factory, the play chronicles the plight of two workers as they struggle to maintain their sanity in the midst of mind-numbing monotony.  Danvir Grewal plays Mason, a worker who has a constant succession of roommates due to the fact that they keep jumping out the window.  Tommy Crawford plays his roommates (there are 3 during the duration of the play), with the story mainly focusing on Loomis, a socially challenged yet optimistic young man who has just started at the factory.  Mason and Loomis forge an unlikely friendship over time and navigate the many obstacles of factory life together (they also compete in dance competitions together and become obsessed with the same imaginary girl).  Told in very loose form, the plot rarely becomes evident with the play more often relying on vignettes to tell the story of these two workers.

The cast works well together.  Kim Blanck as the imaginary muse Iris is sexy and elusive, violent and inquisitive, and you can see the hard work she has put into bringing dimension to this hazy character.  Michael Moran as the Security Guard excels at showing the cartoon nature of his post, and contrasts these over-the-top scenes with small intimate moments where his true self shines through.  Grewal as Mason struggles to find an arch, mostly resorting to play one-note anger.  Crawford is winning as Loomis; he finds nuance and great variety within the confines of his characters’ disabilities. 

While the sets by Natalie Khuen and sound design by Emily Jankowski work extremely well in establishing the world of this mechanical factory, the direction by Sarah Wansley isn't always able to cohesively bring all the pieces together.  Many aspects of this play are fantastical, yet the rules of this world are never clearly established.  When dealing with strange or mythological elements, the key is to present the rules in which these characters live and exist, and stick to them.  We never understand what these are though, so Blanck’s muse-like character Iris is extremely confusing – what exactly is she?  Who can see her, how often is she visible, and is she a physical extension of the male characters or can she act on her own in the physical world?  These are questions that are never addressed, so I was left pondering them throughout the run of the play, and am still not sure what her role in the story was.

While I understand Jacobi’s intent in writing a story that captures the helplessness that comes with these types of jobs, by relying so heavily on recreating the inner struggles of these characters only the emotional themes of the play become evident, while the story never truly comes into focus.  More specificity would have greatly helped.  The program notes that this play is about the Chinese Foxconn factories, and US working conditions, and unions, and dancing, and friendship… Perhaps the issue in the end is that many of these themes are deserving of their own work, yet here they are all packed into a 70 minute piece with no clear objective.