The two masterminds behind this work are Oriza Hirata, founder of the company “Seinendan” and one of the leading figures in the world of theatre with his Theory of Contemporary Colloquial Theatre, and leading robot researcher Hiroshi Ishiguro, creator of the “Geminoid”, a robot uncannily similar to a human being. These two internationally active geniuses have teamed up to develop a robot-human theatre project at Osaka University, and will be presenting their work for the first time in Kyoto.
It is the story of a young girl facing death and an android who endlessly reads poetry. While the android calmly reads poems by Tanikawa Shuntaro, Arthur Rimbaud and Wakayama Bokusui, an entirely new relationship between humans and robots is represented.
The co-starring of an android and a human makes spectators, even if for a brief moment, start doubting which of the two seems more human-like, and the strange feeling that perhaps the robot is more human than humans arises.
This piece raises the following question to the audience: “If androids are more human than humans, what are human beings?” It is a shocking play which shows the critical point of convergence between science and theatre and which entirely renovates the image of robots.