TFANA + Rattlestick Theater’s “We Are Your Robots” Entertains Sweetly with a Shrug – front mezz junkies, Theater News

The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: We Are Your Robots

By Ross

“What do you want from your machines?” we are asked at the beginning of the very sweet-natured new musical, We Are Your Robots, a co-production between Theatre for a New Audience + Rattlestick Theater, and as we are introduced to this demonstration, we are drawn in, not exactly by the power of the music, written wryly by Obie-winning playwright Ethan Lipton (Public/Joe’s Pub’s The Outer Space), but by the engaging quality of the framing. It’s a great question that is asked of us all who have gathered at TFANA in Brooklyn and the answer takes us through a songlist that is plucked and formed from folk, rock and roll, jazz, and country music, played with finesse by Lipton’s bandmates of 20 years: Eben Levy on guitar, Vito Dieterle on saxophone, and Ian Riggs on bass.

The philosophizing that takes place around the ideas of consciousness and what it means be to human, playfully coordinated around some musical robots exploring our needs and wants from them, is tender and kind, but almost too smooth to be enlivening. These four ‘robots’, playing on a stage designed with modernist intent by Lee Jellinek (Broadway’s Sea Wall/A Life), with strong design elements supplied by lighting designer Adam Honoré (2ST’s Walden), sound designer Nevin Steinberg (Broadway’s Sweeney Todd), projection designer Katherine Freer (Signature’s By the Way, Meet Vera Stark), and costuming by Alejo Vietti (2ST’s Spain), want to gain our trust in order to understand the challenges we all face, and what we need from this realm, and inside the text and songs by Lipton, we find an uncertainty mixed with reliability that connects but never really ignites.

Directed with tender care by Leigh Silverman (Broadway’s Suffs), We Are Your Robots makes us wonder what will actually happen once they get our trust, without ever really giving us the answer. This is the second show in the week (after A Wonderful World) that my jazz-playing dad would have enjoyed, as he would feel the music deep into his soul, but I must admit when the show gently wraps itself up and off stage, my buddy and I shrugged with a casual level of cute enjoyment, and quickly moved on to the more important matter of getting a nice pint of beer and reconnecting to each other, not to some robots. But if you are interested in some more dynamic robots, maybe check out Maybe Happy Endings on Broadway. They left a bigger impact on my heart and soul than here at Theatre for a New Audience.