The First Human & The Last Life
08 November 2025
Etcetera Theatre
3.0 out of 5.0 stars
The First Human & The Last Life is currently running as part of the Voila Festival at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden, with two showings still coming up on 16 and 23 November at 9pm. The sci-fi theatre piece tackles themes of identity and humanity and the advancement of AI. Through the lens of a post-apocalyptic world in which humanity has long gone extinct and the planet has been left to heal over thousands of years, while a lone AI kept working on the project its former creators abandoned before their deaths. Dr. Emily Chan once hoped to create humans from DNA sequences to repopulate the earth and keep humanity going, before pondering whether humanity was even worth saving. But when she and her husband eventually died, AI robot 307E continued their project of creation. When the first human is created from this project, 307E endeavours to teach them how to be human. Can an AI truly teach a human what it means to feel, to experience with all senses, to truly be human?
Adrian Poon and Winky Sze-wai Chan take turns portraying AI or Human, swapping roles for each show. In the staging reviewed here, Winky Sze-wai Chan played Human, beginning the birth of the first human with a gorgeously physical performance floating on a set of chairs to a backdrop of a high tech laboratory and tranquil sounds of bubbling and beeping. The ethereal dance forms a visceral beginning to an expressive performance, showing Human trying to stand on two feel, learning how to navigate a body in a world full of machines.
Adrian Poon plays 307E as a believable humanoid robot, moving in distinctly robotic, uncannily choppy ways reminding of newly released AI robots recently seen in the media. He uses his voice with a very flat affect of a machine, adding a mechanically robotic voice to the mix that reminds more of 80s robot voices than modern AI. There is an uncomfortable sense of rigidity radiating from the robot character, really showcasing an exceptional performance.
As the story progresses, AI tries to teach Human to be human, or more specifically, to be like Dr. Emily Chan, meanwhile urgently seeking to preserve Human’s life. After centuries of trying to create a new human life, this precious new being must be protected at all cost, even at the cost of experiencing nature, feeling life freely, learning through living. This over-protection leads to rebellion while Human slowly remembers all the atrocities committed by humanity in the past, wondering if this revival of the species is something worth pursuing.
Writer YY Yung has created a chilling theatre piece that ponders human culture intertwining with AI developments, focussing on what it means to be human, and whether machines can really teach us things they have never experienced. Can a machine teach emotions that are felt in a human body when it itself does not have the capacity to feel? What importance do history, culture, and philosophy play in human development? Can we ever live up to the expectations laid upon us? And of course, is humanity actually worth saving in a world ravaged by our greed and selfishness.
The show itself is a little short to really deeply examine the heavy topics it seeks to tackle, leading to a somewhat superficial production that excels in some areas and feel a bit thin in others. The post-extinction world is only peripherally described through a lab and a garden, not touching on how a robot has managed to keep itself in good repair and have access to vast electricity to keep an entire human-creation lab going for a few thousand years. The underlying idea and story are fascinating and well developed, but the time constrains of a one-hour fringe show doesn’t allow the story to fully breathe and come to life. There is a lot of potential in this incredibly well presented show, though it needs a good dose of further development to really strike a balance and delve deeply into the philosophic pondering it seeks to depict.
Still, director Krissy Yin Lam has worked magic with two excellent performers, presenting a beautiful pondering on humanity and technology, bringing a compelling show to the stage. The progression and development of this theatre piece is definitely one to keep an eye on.
