The short play begins as a very large, hairy man and very beautiful woman are having sex. She’s on top.
The title? “My Fantasy Sex Robot Came In the Mail Today.”
In an era when spambots masquerade as online daters and virtual reality edges ever closer, it seems a natural time for a “Sex With Robots” short-play festival, now in pre-production for a November opening in Queens.
Co-curators Mariah MacCarthy and Danny Bowes each brought four writers on board to create a total of eight short plays. So far, two have been submitted, including “My Fantasy Sex Robot.”
“I said, ‘This is the greatest idea ever!’ ” says MacCarthy about her upcoming festival.
“I’m interested in how people express their identity and their insecurities and their dark sides through sex, generally,” adds MacCarthy.
“And the relationship to something that is technically not human interested me even more — you don’t necessarily have to worry about this thing’s feelings. Or do you? What different side of us will come out when we’re dealing with something that we think of as just a machine but we still have a very human response to?”
MacCarthy is a playwright, producer and executive artistic director of Caps Lock Theatre, and Bowes is a writer and performer, as well as a film critic for Indiewire and rogerebert.com.
MacCarthy says she sought out “people whose voices I thought would bring something fresh. Maybe you hear the name of the festival and think it’ll just be about geek boys and their hot fembots all evening. I chose people who would have something different to say.”
Since launching plans for the festival, MacCarthy has, understandably, had robots on the brain. “I’ve found a few really fun or creepy videos,” she says. “There’s one short film where Willem Dafoe plays a companion robot.”
She also thought back to 2001’s “A.I.”: “I forget how old I was when it came out, but I was just completely in love with robot Jude Law.”
The Sex With Robots Festival runs from Nov. 5 to 10 at the Secret Theatre in Long Island City.