New York Times Reviews Androids Stage Adaptation

There was an interesting review of the staged adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in Dec 3rd's New York Times - usually a very trustworthy source. Here's the line that should indicate to readers that this writer has no idea what he's talking about:

"Ridley Scott’s 1982 “Blade Runner” is a stylish action movie starring Harrison Ford as Deckard, a bounty hunter in pursuit of coolly attractive androids. Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,” the 1968 book it’s based on, is a very different novel of ideas, at its essence about an unhappily married man." The emphasis is mine, the knumbskullery is all theirs.

If that didn't dissuade you from reading the review, go here.

What to Expect From the Androids Onstage

As you regulars know, there is currently a stage adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Alas, I have not been able to procure transit to the New York area, and in these troubled economic times no funding seems forthcoming. Luckily, reader Mark Rowe has generously offered an account of his experience seeing the play. Without further ado, here's Mark:

"I went to see it Saturday and thought I'd fill you in in case no one else had.

[SPOILERS AHEAD!!]

I've read the book twice and its been a year or so since the last time so some of my details on the book may be sketchy. The play is significantly closer to the book than Blade Runner, however does definitely veer from it.

The play opens with Luna (not Luba) Luft singing. While I did really like the play the music was way out there and I did not dig it.

Luna Luft is the primary android in the play. Roy Batty and Pris are in there as well but 'Luna' is the primary concern. Her being a celebrity also becomes a factor. She is seen singing on a number of occasions on the Buster Friendly show. She sings 'Mercer hymns', which I don't recall from the book. [and which is kind of weird since Buster is dedicated to Mercerism's undoing -ed]

Then the scene turns to Deckard, upset after just killing his electric sheep. I don't think he really gave a reason for killing it. He and his wife talk about the emotions they've dialed (with little gadgets around their heads). He calls Isidore at the Happy Dog Pet Shop and they talk prices for a real animal. And Bryant calls Deckard about the androids. They also have a version of the empathy box, where they open a large door with a screen on the front of it - so when they're inside you can see the actor along with projections of Mercer being stoned, walking with a tattered bloody shirt (the actor pretends to be dodging stones left and right).

Bryant has Deckard meet Rachel, Tyrell Corp is called Rosen Corp in the play. I think she said her father was Jeffery Rosen. She mentions her uncle Eldon Tyrell but they eliminate him as a character. Deckard gives her the Voigt Kampf test and asks the same questions regarding boiled dog, the poster of the naked lady etc...

I may be forgetting the order of things... But I think next was Isidore Pris meeting at JR's apartment. He talks about being a chickenhead and about all the androids being created on Mars - the media says "Everything's better on mars" but Pris says otherwise... at some point she gives herself away (fairly easily) as being an android. OH! and Pris is played by the same actress as Rachel. (I had hoped they'd come out with twin actresses towards the end but alas).

Deckard goes to meet Luna Luft (does not pretend to be someone else); he tries to give her the test but she distracts him and calls a cop (Bryant) and Bryant sends Phillipa Ryan. I was trying to recall the name Phillipa Ryan from the book but i couldn't find anything online...[sounds like a feminization of Phil Resch to me - ed]. I don't have my copy of the book readily available to flip through. She is the cop who arrests Deckard from Luna Luft's dressing room. She takes Deckard back to Bryant's office... Bryant says she's an andy and wants Deckard to kill her....[not in the book] in a standoff Bryant is killed and Phillipa reveals Bryant to be the android... There was also a blood test to prove who is and who isn't an android. I didn't recall that one in the book either. [That's the boneli test which can be performed only after the man/machine is dead]."

So at the point Bryant is revealed as an android - I'm hooked. But Luna Luft's singing keeps returning and that puts me off (even though her voice wasn't bad). So Isidore and Pris finally meet Roy Baty. Deckard kills Luna Luft whilst she is singing on TV, seemingly out of revenge for having gotten away from him the first time. Deckard's motive - while still regarding the $3k and his live animal is less driven by the 'law' with Bryant gone.

Buster Friendly is played by an actor (always while actually doing the show in studio with a camera). The fact that he kills her while on TV is made a big deal... Deckard is turned into a villian of sorts (a minor subplot) after killing everyone's favorite singer.

Deckard and Rachel meet up again and Rachel offers him money to kill Baty. There were a few 'fake' plot twists here and there that I can't recall - but something Rachel said to Deckard - which I can't completely remember - ended up not having anything to do with the actual plot. Another was when Pris I think mentioned Luna Luft to Isidore saying "I heard there are three (andys) of her around." Which wasn't true.

Deckard goes to Isidore's apt and finds Baty. Rachel also turns up. Baty and Rachel talk about a revolution and I'm sketchy on the details of the conversation, but it was as if Rachel was trying to fake out Baty ...Rachel then kills Baty.

There was another scene where Deckard comes back to kill Pris but Pris comes out dressed as Rachel (played by the same actress). He ends up killing Pris and is now distraught by having to do so. A kiss between Deckard and Rachel earlier in the play takes the place of their relationship and signifies the empathy Deckard has for the androids.

Deckard goes into Isidore's empathy box and two weeks later comes out of the empathy box at his home with a real turtle. Once his wife sees he's alive they talk about Mercerism a bit and wrap up the plot. Buster Friendly revealed Mercer to be an actor (I'm going out of order here sorry this was earlier). At the end Deckard's wife says Buster Friendly presented android parts belonging to Deckard, telling the world that Luna Luft's killer was Deckard, an andy. So Deckard is off the hook.

All in all I really liked it - there was some dialogue that hit you over the head a little hard regarding empathy and the book's message. But I loved seeing it presented on stage. My wife enjoyed it as well and she won't read an entire PKD novel (I've tried to get her to)."

Thanks Mark! This certainly sounds interesting, and no I'm not being evasive at all.
All you NYC locals, keep us posted!
I found this slide-show on the production company's website. Check it out.

Interview with Androids Stage Director

Tor.com has posted an interview with Edward Einhorn, the director of the stage adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? currently running in New York City. In a recent post I may have hinted that the producers of this were on a different page, what with the mock 'Save the Androids Fundraiser', but even a cursory glance at this interview reveals that Einhorn has zeroed in on the book's central theme. Here's an important excerpt:

DB: What drew you to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? And what inspired you to adapt it for the stage?

EE: I read the book after I had already seen Blade Runner, and I was struck by how different it was—and to my mind, better. The thing that intrigued me about it was Mercerism, empathy, and their relationship to the symbol of the electric sheep—none of which appeared in the movie at all. The movie is of course an entity in itself, and groundbreaking in its own way, but it didn’t capture the heart of what the book said to me.

Then I read about one of Dick’s inspirations—he had read a Nazi journal in which an SS officer complained about not being able to sleep because the crying of the children in the concentration camps kept him awake. Instead of empathizing with the suffering of the children, the officer only saw them as a nuisance that disturbed his sleep. Dick started thinking of people who lacked any sort of empathy as androids. To me, the book is all about how the process of war and killing (or being enslaved) makes people into androids, and Mercerism is all about resurrecting that spirit inside. Deckard is a character who is losing his own humanity because of his job.

This theme seemed to resonate perfectly with our mission, which as I said, is to be a Theater of Ideas. It also reminded me of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, which I staged some years ago. During World War II, as Ionesco saw fellow colleagues succumb to anti-Semitism, he started envisioning those people as rhinoceroses, losing their humanity to a herd instinct. That connection made Do Androids Dream… seem all the more perfect material for us."

Make sure to read the rest here.

I talk about that concentration camp journal too, where does PKD discuss that, is it mentioned in Sutin?

Stay tuned, in the coming days we will have a sort of a preview/review of the show written by one of our faithful readers!

Deckard and Meursault

Here's a surprisingly good student essay about the similarities between Deckard and Meursault, Camus' protagonist in The Stranger. Enjoy!

Deckard and Meursault
by Andrew Rosebrock

One generally doesn’t associate 1960s American science fiction with 1940s French existentialism, but then again one generally doesn’t associate Jimi Hendrix with Robert Johnson either and anyone who knows anything about music knows the former might never have existed without the latter. At the heart of every existentialist novel there exists an uncertainty about what constitutes humanity, and at the heart of Philip K. Dick’s masterpiece Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? uncertainty reigns supreme. Rick Deckard spends the vast majority of his time in the novel in an almost trancelike state, unaware of anything but what appears to him to be the path of least resistance: retire the andys, collect the bounties, spend the money, repeat. But his attitude is not unique among literary characters; Rick Deckard is almost a brother to the protagonist of Albert Camus’ The Stranger, Meursault. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Rick Deckard follows a path of existential self-realization along the same lines as Meursault, in that both characters exist at a disconnect with the rest of their respective worlds, but through harrowing experience become empathetic to their surroundings.

In order to understand the similarities between Deckard and Meursault, we must first take a look at the role empathy plays in the two novels as a central and irreplaceable theme. Deckard quantifies empathy in the form of the Voight-Kampff Test and uses it to carry out his duties as a bounty hunter (Dick, 26) and as such it is a constant presence within the novel. For the majority of the novel, however, Deckard only exercises empathy in order to do his job; empathy constitutes a trait lacking in Deckard’s personal character. The protagonist of DADOES is dismissive toward his wife, complacent towards his surroundings, and completely willing to take the life of a living being after only a modicum of threadbare rationalization. Deckard is a man without empathy killing men and women who seem to be no more, but who are certainly no less, capable than he is. The role of empathy in DADOES is central in defining the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonists. Similarly in The Stranger Meursault is defined by his lack of empathy. Meursault is so lacking, in fact, he kills a man for no particular reason other than that it was hot. At the end of both novels, empathy is used as a yardstick measuring the change of both protagonists. After surviving and successfully retiring the androids, Deckard encounters a toad and feels joy at the simple existence of a living creature, whereas Meursault is finally shaken from his complacency by impending death and realizes he wants to share in the hatred people have for him as he walks to his own death at the guillotine. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and The Stranger are two novels of a kind, chronicling the journey of two characters on a subtly similar trajectory.

The parallels between Deckard and Meursault are readily apparent at the beginning of both novels, in how the two characters treat their family. Deckard’s story begins with a wretched squabble with his wife Iran (Dick, 2), the only solution to which he can come up with is to use the Penfield Mood Organ. It isn’t hard to extrapolate that Deckard has no great interest in his wife other than convenience in not having to drastically change his established patterns. The use of the Mood Organ is a particularly lazy compromise and demonstrates that at the beginning of the novel Deckard has an eye primarily toward what seems to be the path of least resistance. Deckard is comfortable in his rut and would just as soon stay there if he could. To Deckard’s dubious credit, however, Meursault is worse; his reaction to the news of his mother’s death being simply “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.” (Camus, 1.) Regardless both characters are shown from the very beginning of their respective novels to exist in an empathetic void, cut off from those that should be closest to them.

The two protagonists are not only cut off from their loved ones, but also from those they kill. Meursault’s murder is a senseless act on a scale few can even comprehend; he kills a man simply because it’s hot, and he feels like it (Camus, 59). Deckard, meanwhile, kills because he is told to and because killing is his job. This is more sensible from a pragmatic standpoint, but at the base of things Deckard and Meursault are still tied together: both kill because they lack the willpower not to kill, and they lack the willpower not to kill because they have no empathy. The only way in which Deckard differs significantly for Meursault is that he makes a cursory attempt at rationalizing his actions through the Mercerist principle of “kill only the killers” (Dick, 27). Within a few paragraphs of internal monologue, however, Deckard betrays that he is hardly confident in his faith. Deckard is ultimately no more moral or justified in his work than Meursault is in his discretion; neither man really gives a damn.

Ultimately Meursault and Deckard are similar in their redemption as they were in their sin, though they come about it from different directions. Meursault and Deckard are both confronted by a religious figure, Meursault by the Catholic priest and Deckard by Wilbur Mercer. Though they react in different ways, Meursault with anger towards the priest (Camus, 120), and Deckard with resignation that he can complete his task (Dick, 196). Deckard goes on to retire – or murder, depending on your perspective, the last two andys, but the encounter with Mercer allows Deckard to finally make an empathic connection with another living creature (though it isn’t actually living), becoming Mercer himself (Dick, 210). Similarly Meursault’s encounter with the priest allows him to appreciate the anger of the crowd that will watch him die. Both characters have come to the end of their journey: from existing at odd with their surroundings they finally show empathy and move beyond what they were. Finally both characters have affirmed their humanity.

The story of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is ultimately the story of Rick Deckard’s existentialist journey – from a man barely living to a man who understands the value of life. In my opinion Rick Deckard is a direct descendent of Meursault, and though Philip K. Dick and Albert Camus come from drastically different backgrounds there is an unmistakable similarity in their work. Though Dick was a “lowly” science fiction author, he was no less able to communicate grand themes in his novels and stories, and the question of human existence is a theme he deftly handled in this novel.