Do you ever wish you could be in two places at once? Let your physical body do simple tasks while your brain is elsewhere tackling more pressing issues? That’s productivity at its finest! Lester Trips Theatre explores all this and more in their haunting new play Honey I’m Home. With AI development growing by the day, the most scary part of Honey I’m Home is how close we could be to this being our reality.

Dear Reader, this review is going to be an odd one because the main character’s name in Honey I’m Home is Janine. That’s right, I sat there for a full 70 minutes while my name was being said sort of at me but not to me; I have to admit, it was a rather strange experience. Therefore I want to reassure you all right now that no, I am not talking about myself in the third person, and no, the events of this play have not happened to me…yet.

Janine works a desk job, and at her latest performance review, they’ve given her a significant raise. As more and more of her job becomes automated by AI, there essentially only needs to be someone there to physically keep the lights on and lock up the building at the end of the day. Janine has now been given that job. However, her company has offered her to try a new program, where she’s able to have an avatar in her home which can interact with any digital device, just not any physical objects. Thinking that she’ll be able to maximize her productivity and get some of her ever-growing to-do list done, Janine agrees. Of course things don’t go quite as planned, particularly when Janine finds someone else inhabiting the digital spaces of her home.

Honey I’m Home not only asks us to closely examine our relationship with AI and the digital world, but also our work/life balance and the arbitrary need to constantly be productive. Janine wouldn’t be in this situation if her work didn’t expect her to sit mindlessly at a desk for 10 hours a day while an automated system does the actual work. Their unrealistic standards for what an acceptable work life is forces her hand to feel like she needs to accept this dual being system. Yet we find out how very imperfect the AI system is itself, as Janine’s avatar isn’t fully able to complete the tasks she needs it to; it can start the dishwasher, for example, but Janine would have to remember to load the dishwasher before she left for work. Neither state of existence is perfect, and trying to balance them both leaves Janine more exhausted and confused than ever. It’s an impressive condemnation of both sides of modern life, both the physical idealized “grind” and the supposed utopia and ease promised by the digital age.

Honey I’m Home also includes one of the most accurate depictions of ADHD paralysis (or something akin to it) that I’ve ever seen. When Janine gets home, she drops her coat as she attempts to hang it on the coatrack. Yet we hear the litany of undone tasks which has begun to run through her head the moment she enters her door, and this overwhelming feeling of things to do renders her unable to pick up her coat from the floor. We watch her do this every day for a week, and then routinely lament how little she’s been able to do with the time she has to herself at home. This is relatable in such a real way for me, yet it felt comforting to know that clearly there are many people out there who understand the feeling.

Lauren Gillis and Alaine Hutton are the performers as well as the writers, directors, and designers behind Honey I’m Home. Hutton plays the corporeal Janine: the one sitting at her desk, the one who comes home and can’t pick up her coat, as well as the avatar used to interact with the digital world at home. Gillis plays Janine’s consciousness, essentially, who has to attempt to navigate her own home through an avatar, who gets motion sick trying to play games, and who’s baffled when she finds someone else in her home. These two are brilliant, and in the prologue and epilogue where they get to play off of one another a bit, they bring laughter and levity to this thought-provoking story. Joining them on stage is Angela Blumberg, who plays the other entity in the house. Her performance is engaging and brings and exciting element of mystery to the production.

When Janine is at work, we see her as she’s told to see herself: from above and behind. This requires the performers to be on their stomach and leaning over a chair which doubles as her desk. It’s an incredible feat of physicality for the performer, and engineering by the design team, and I felt it needed to be celebrated.

Honey I’m Home is a scathing look at our lives and what they might become if capitalism and our digital escapism continue as they are. By blatantly exposing the flaws of both worlds, we’re left with the reality that change is going to have to come from us; neither Janine’s bosses or the tech guy she speaks to are willing to step in when she needs help. I left feeling terrified yet driven: terrified that this is a potential future which isn’t too far off but determined to ensure that this doesn’t become a prophecy I see fulfilled.

Honey I’m Home is playing in the Studio Theatre at Factory Theatre until December 1. For more information and tickets, visit: https://www.factorytheatre.ca/shows/honey-im-home/

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Cover Photo: Lauren Gillis. Photo by Eden Graham

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