A new play by Alexis Kirke with actor Sassy Clyde
Who is P?
P (played by Sassy Clyde), like us all, has great power. But she is lazy. Someone once called laziness the original sin. P is afraid to take the actions to solve her problems. Because if she solves her problems, she will achieve a great deal and have to make even more effort.
P has spent her life preparing to live. Preparing to be a solved person. Like us all, she is a complex of neuroses and compulsions (or is that just me?) Rather than taking the actions to change who she is – perhaps to stop over-eating, or stop getting in bad situations – she wants to change her thoughts and feelings first. To brainwash herself into being a better person who takes better actions easily and naturally, without effort and discipline.
And how does she try to do this? Through drama. Through plays – therapy plays. She has discovered that the new AIs can be manipulated to write short plays (monologues) with pretty good character identification and catharsis. So she gets the AI to write her multiple plays about people (compelling characters of course) like her who suffer from her problems, reach a low point and then by have a massive catharsis and are “cured”. They may not achieve their goal but they achieve their need…
And as a result P believes she will be brainwashed into naturally acting in the right ways. She knows that drama is so powerful that plays and novels have been regularly banned and their authors imprisoned. Books have been burned. The power of character identification and the profound moment or moments of catharsis in the story can change peoples’ beliefs and futures.
Once the AI has written the play, P gets one of the “great” new AI speech synthesisers to perform the monologue on her phone. She listens to these each morning and evening. In her down time. Waiting for the change. Tweaking them. Making new ones.
We open the play on a terrible occurrence. I’m not quite sure what it is yet, but P has made a huge mistake due to her complex of neuroses and compulsions (thrown out of her home, lost her job, her relationship, etc.) In a desperate attempt she wants to make the Therapy Play to beat all Therapy Plays. To somehow prove she’s changed and solve the disaster.
But P may well be too tragic to change. Perhaps by play’s end, she has her catharsis (unlike Krapp, see below). She says “IT’S THE THERAPY PLAYS THAT ARE THE TRUE COMPULSION! Yes, of course. I must break free and start living life.” Or perhaps her tragedy is that she uses AI to write a Therapy Play to stop her addiction to Therapy Plays.
Or maybe she herself is OUR Therapy Play?
What inspired this?
I hate Krapp’s Last Tape. It is so good it hurts me. I sometimes wish I’d never read it or seen it. Therapy Plays is NOT the “AI Version of Krapp’s Last Tape” because therapy plays are by their nature vastly different to diary entries. But it raises some of the same issues. Krapp wanted to live a life and record it, instead his life became his recordings.
I use morning affirmations and a few months ago I started using AI to help both generate and read them, including with my own cloned voice. I am an AI consultant. I adore AI with all my heart, I fear it may destroy my living and meaning.
Why Now?
Every day I am planning and positioning for a future where AI consultants and coders like me are no longer needed, and were drama writers like me are in much less demand. I know this is about now because it is a constant worry in my life and I am an expert in it. Furthermore, we live in an age where mental health issues are growing exponentially. Will AI save us, or will it damage both creativity and human connection? And just what is human connection when our teens today confide in ChatGPT, seeking answers there?