Technique by Elbow Room – A Reading
Ellen was a scientist. Is a scientist.
She'd thought she was dead. Instead, she has travelled in time.
And the future wants a word.
Award-winning theatre makers Elbow Room present a brand new sci-fi story about power, technology, parenthood, and our responsibility to what comes after us. In this staged reading, the astonishing Emily Tomlins evokes the role of religious impulse in the contemporary world, interspersed with humorous asides and serious meditations on human fallibility, frailty and folly, juxtaposed absurdly with the structures of science.
Technique is a new science-fiction theatre work for a single performer, created by Melbourne company Elbow Room. The work explores how humanity’s future is affected by a groundbreaking reproductive method involving artificial intelligence – but not cis-men.
Technique was initially conceived in 2013, as part of Now More Than Ever, the third part in Elbow Room’s trilogy exploring the role of the religious impulse in the contemporary world. This section of the show imagined a scientist who played a key role in discovering how to produce a viable human embryo from the fusion of two ova. As a scientific discovery, this possibility breaks open vast new potential to reproductive rights; politically, it becomes one of the most dangerous discoveries in history.
Writer / Director: Marcel Dorney
Performer/Co-Creator: Emily Tomlins
Set and Costume Design: Zoe Rouse
Sound Design/Composition: Chris Wenn
Lighting Design: Kris Chainey
Production/Stage Management: Rosemary Osmond
Produced by Elbow Room
