Kandinsky Theatre’s More Life, co-created by James Yeatman (Director) and Lauren Mooney (Text and Dramaturgy) is an unsettling, sci-fi-inspired take on identity, technology, and what it means to live. Taking inspiration from the Frankenstein story, the play reimagines the classic tale for an age increasingly defined by artificial intelligence and digital consciousness.
Set in the year 2075, the story follows a scientist Victor (Marc Elliott) working for a company developing technology that allows the consciousness of the dead to be transferred into synthetic bodies. After several failed attempts, he succeeds in resurrecting Bridget (Alison Halstead), a woman who died in a car accident 50 years prior. The first half of the play focuses on the scientific process, with several failed attempts at the operation. The second half sees Bridget reunited with her husband, Harry (Tim McMullan), who has since remarried (Helen Schlesinger). What unfolds is a deeply uncanny exploration of memory and the limits of human connection in a world where advancements in technology have begun to blur the boundaries between what is and isn’t human.
Shankho Chaudhuri’s set design is striking: a wall of orange cubes and an orange floor dominate the space, evoking both the warmth of nostalgia and the artificiality of a manufactured future. A sliding glass door leading to an exit often filled with smoke hints at the unknown beyond. Crucially, the production resists relying too heavily on technology for its storytelling. The only on-stage tech is a set of microphones, which actors use intermittently to enhance the play’s eerie, disembodied quality.
At the heart of the piece is Alison Halstead’s mesmerising performance as Bridget. She embodies the unease of the uncanny valley; her movement is deliberate yet weightless, her gaze just a little too wide, her stillness loaded with tension. One particularly effective sequence sees her body inhabited by multiple consciousnesses, each voiced by different actors into the microphone. With subtle shifts in posture and energy, Halstead makes each transition distinct, showcasing an impressive physical control that heightens the play’s disquieting atmosphere.
McMullan is equally compelling as Harry, his performance stripped of excess emotion in a way that feels deliberately unsettling. In this vision of 2075, people like Harry and his new wife are kept youthful by microchips that monitor their health, dictating their diet and lifestyle. While they have aged, Bridget’s consciousness remains frozen in time, her reappearance throwing their carefully ordered existence into chaos. Danusia Samal also delivers a strong performance as the ghost of the original Bridget, offering a glimpse of warmth and humanity that is absent from Halstead’s synthetic counterpart. Meanwhile, Lewis Mackinnon provides a grounded counterpoint as Mike, a scientist grappling with the ethical implications of their work, his trepidation serving as a quiet but powerful moral anchor.
Zak Gvirtzman’s composition and co-sound design with Dan Balfour give the production a cinematic quality. The score shifts from hopeful piano melodies to sharp, horror-inflected strings, amplifying the growing tension. In lighter moments, playful music accompanies Bridget’s attempts to navigate her new reality, making the sudden tonal shifts all the more jarring. Ryan Joseph Stafford’s lighting is equally evocative, using the cube-like set to create shifting patterns and pulsing effects that reinforce the play’s themes of distortion and artificiality.
The production cleverly leans into the surreal, never settling into full naturalism. The decision to keep the Royal Court’s technical desk visible reminds us that this is artifice; an imagined future rather than a prescriptive vision.
The play’s themes feel particularly timely in 2025, with AI increasingly shaping creative and ethical conversations across industries. More Life doesn’t try to provide easy answers but instead invites us to sit in the discomfort of the unknown. With its bold staging, precise performances, and eerie atmosphere, this is a deeply compelling production that unsettles and provokes, exploring the technological advancements without letting us ever stray too far away from the human quality of live performance.
Review by Joseph Dunitz
‘Imagine yourself as a file on a computer: That’s you. That’s what you are now.’
A woman wakes up in 2075, in a body that is not her own.
Fifty years ago, Bridget died in a car accident. Now, thanks to a technological breakthrough, she is back: her mind, her consciousness, in a synthetic body. Metal. Wires. But she’s still Bridget, isn’t she? She must be.
Cast: Marc Elliott, Alison Halstead, Lewis Mackinnon, Tim McMullan, Danusia Samal, Helen Schlesinger
By Lauren Mooney and James Yeatman
Director: James Yeatman (he/him)
Text and Dramaturgy: Lauren Mooney (she/her)
Designer: Shankho Chadhuri
Lighting Designer: Ryan Joseph Stafford
Composer and Co-Sound Designer: Zac Gvirtzman
Co-Sound Designer: Dan Balfour
Vocal Music Director: Osnat Schmool
MORE LIFE
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court
6 February to 8 March 2025
