SECRET LIFE OF HUMANS

THEATER REVIEW

SECRET LIFE OF HUMANS
Reviewed by Eva Heinemann

By David Byrne
Directed by David Byrne and Kate Stanley

CAST:
Ava....Stella Tylor
Jamie...Andrew Strafford-Baker
Jacob Bronowski...Richard Delaney
Rita Bronowski...Olivia Hirst
George...Andy Mcleod

David Byrne's SECRET LIFE OF HUMANS Is more of a lecture than a play about
what it is to be human.  Ava is lecturing us about where human beings are headed.
She referes to Jacob Bronowski who was responsible for the TV series, ASCENT OF MAN.
By happenstance she meets Jamie on a blind date and discover Dr Bronowski's secret
In the course of the play we get flashbacks of Bronowski's wife  and co-worker George.
This play explores many profound ideas that my theatrical mind could not grasp.
The characters are only appealing when they stop talking and acted human.

By trying to humanize Yuval Harari's Sapiens brief history of man, which sounds like a
text book to me with stories of world war 11 and some confusing mathematical project
doesn't make compelling theater  The only interesting character was Jamie, (Andrew Strafford-Baker)
who had just lost his mother, was proud of his famous grandfather and was just looking for love and
not to be alone in the world is more the definition of being human than all the theories and ideas
bandied about by Ava.

The acting was very good and there was one very exciting visual element.  This was not the play
for my summer fried brain to see.

MIXED

BINA SHARIF'S RESPONSE

This play was extremely cerebral, at times thought provoking and at the same time quite confusing.
The poblem for me about the play is that it doesn't clarify much thus making it not so absorbing a drama.  The journey of human beings which is very complex stayed complex but perhaps thats the
point of the play.

I didn't like Ava's, (Stella Taylor) character at all. She was manipulative and selfish and ended by taking advantage of Jamie.

MIXED