Method Meets Metal As First Robot Actors Debut In Japan

Inspired by the success of Hayden Christensen and Nicole Kidman, robot actors are now wired to take on Shakespeare. Maybe not but Hollywood, for sure.

Word is one of the many actors groups in Hollywood is up for going on strike very soon. As if the dubious wisdom of going on strike in the teeth of a recession wasn't enough for these struggling thespians to get all ulcerated over comes this bit of news out of Japan. Somewhere between the heavy metal ethos and that of method acting lies the performance style o the world's first acting robots. This new breed of 'bot premiered Saturday at Osaka university in one of Japan's first robot-human theatre productions. The project represents yet another example of collaboration between artistic disciplines and technology. The end result was a hookup between Playwright Oriza Hirata,Osaka University and Mitsubushi, manufacturers of the Wakamaru robot. Hirata says the play's intended to raise questions about the humanity /technology relationship in general, which is par for this course. He posits the question of what can an intelligent techno-being expect of itself? In the play, set in the near future,the robot complains it’s been hijacked into working at boring and demeaning jobs and engages the humans in discussion about its role in their lives. With acting robots, you know it won't be long before we hear one of them bitching about what it really wants to do is direct, man. Much like human actors, these thespian robots come from a class of humanoid bots created for more mundane gigs like mechanical house-sitter and secretary. Cheekily titled Hataraku Watashi (I, Worker), the play’s a compressed 20 minutes long at this point but the production's backers say the audience response has encouraged them to start on a full-fledged production, to premier in 2010. In the mean time, the robots have accquired bling and agents and to date none of them have signed on for the big show, Which, if the Hollywood strike goes, down, could make for an interesting job opportunity for enterprising human actors.