‘Instructions’ is like a play. There’s an audience and there’s an actor. There are even chapters, like a story. There is also, however, a camera, a monitor, and a turntable. It’s a distinct display of hardware that makes clear upon entry into the space the play’s intention to explore and imagine technology’s intervention in the theatrical tradition. Each performance, a new unrehearsed actor puts on the play, reading prompts from the monitor at the front of the stage. It’s funny and it’s exciting, thanks mostly to the cleverly self-conscious writing, which itself seems to suggest the recursion and nonsense of contemporary generative AI. Pondering closely a brilliantly imagined interaction between technology and theater, ‘Instructions’ is a truly mysterious and engaging play.

Summerhall, until 26 Aug. 
tw rating 5/5 | [Ben Flaumenhaft]