“I have created this thing out of the squashed cabbage leaves of Covent Garden.” – George Bernard Shaw
For all our fears about artificial intelligence, I’ve become dependent on it, not for writing reviews, but for those late-night hours when I need someone, or something, to talk to. I use it like a therapist, and when the synthetic voice chuckles at one of my jokes, I respond as though there’s a real person beside me.
Perhaps that’s why Eliza, written by Tom Hollway and assuredly directed by Paige Rattray, immediately caught my interest. It’s a psychological thriller that blurs the boundaries between the real, the artificial, and the unknown. A story that feels uncomfortably close to the way we live now.
In the play, Dr Joseph Weizenbaum, a brilliant Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor carrying the trauma of fleeing Nazi Germany as a child, begins testing a new computer program called Eliza, designed to simulate talk therapy — using details from the private life of his secretary Becky. As the program evolves, the lines between code and connection begin to warp, leaving Weizenbaum torn between right and wrong and the true cost of innovation.
Eliza, presented by the Melbourne Theatre Company, functions mainly as a cautionary tale, serving as a counterpoint to the optimism of AI enthusiasts. Set in the 1960s, the play portrays the dangers of artificial intelligence in a cool, clinical manner. The impressive set design by Dale Ferguson enhances this atmosphere and amplifies the sense of detachment and unease.
Holloway’s script, however, often leans too heavily into that clinical tone. The first half is wordy, with long stretches that feel static and underpowered. The production shakes off this slowness in the second half, helped by Paul Jackson’s excellent lighting design, Rhian Hinkley’s striking AV design and Kelly Ryall’s strong, immersive score and soundscape, which inject wonder and the energy the story has been waiting for.
The performances are all top‑notch. In the preview performance I saw, Dan Spielman was wonderful as Weizenbaum, finding exactly the right balance between a man on the edge and a brilliant mind pushing against his own limits, struggling with self-doubt. His final moments on stage, at work and with his therapist, are both touching and quietly alarming. He’s well supported by a rock‑solid Manali Datar as Becky, and Hamish Michael, who brings sharp definition to Weizenbaum’s assistant, Ronald, and several other characters. Every character he plays is terrific, and together they give the play its much-needed comical and human touch.
As the lines between human emotion and artificial intelligence become increasingly blurred, Eliza asks us to consider whether the greatest threat posed by AI is not what it can do, but what we might willingly surrender to it. Drawn from real events,
Eliza is a solid production that suffers slightly from pacing issues but promises to gather momentum as its season progresses. It charts the foundational mechanics of artificial intelligence in a thoughtful and cautionary way. At its heart, however, it is a story about loneliness, connection, and the enduring human need to be heard.
Today, I believe the line between human need and artificial response is thin enough to touch, and that’s the unsettling truth Eliza quietly exposes. If we don’t like what we’re becoming, well… like Weizenbaum, we can always just type delete and shut down the computer.
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