Life Like
by Charles Berman and Daniel Schwartz
copyright 2013
first presented on stage 7 and 8 June 2013 by Darhorse Dramatists at the Tri Cities Opera Center in
Binghamton, New York. Later recorded for radio.
Cast of Characters
Shelton: Male, scientist, may be cast as female
Joe Richards: Male, venture capitalist, may be cast as female
Steve: Male, robot, appears human in early 30s
(SHELTON is in his office, taking notes on paper. He wears lab coat and tie, self-consciously 50s scientist type. There is the sound of pounding at the door)
RICHARDS:
(off)
SHELTON!
(Sound of door, slamming open. RICHARDS enters, well-dressed plutocrat used to getting what he wants, dragging STEVE, who wears casual clothes and appears bewildered)
RICHARDS:
Shelton, what the hell are you trying to pull here?
SHELTON:
Um...working? How did the presentation go?
RICHARDS:
This isn’t funny, Shelton! Your ‘robot’ got me laughed out of the meeting.
STEVE:
That means it was funny.
RICHARDS:
Shut up! Shelton, I want my money back!
SHELTON:
What money? Mr Richards, I gave you an itemized bill. My expenses are accounted for.
RICHARDS:
There was only one item!
STEVE:
I guess that’s me, right? I’m the item.
RICHARDS:
This is just a guy!
(beat)
SHELTON:
Just a guy? Mr Richards, if there was a Nobel Prize in Robotics, and I hadn’t signed that stupid contract with you, I would have the Nobel Prize in Robotics. The apex of scientific achievement. I might as well have a La-Z-Boy made of laurels.
RICHARDS + STEVE:
What?
SHELTON:
Laurels. To rest on. With pride. Because I made life. How are you not impressed by this?
RICHARDS:
Because you haven’t delivered on my product.
SHELTON:
The hell I didn’t! You gave me the most daunting task an inventor has ever been swindled into by an unscrupulous investor. And yet, lo and be-freaking-hold, eighteen months later, I give you...STEVE!
STEVE:
Hi.
(beat)
I can wait outside. Am I making this awkward?
RICHARDS:
You’re not going anywhere. You’re the product. I’m returning you in the unfashionable packaging.
SHELTON:
You can change his clothes!
STEVE:
What’s wrong with my clothes?
SHELTON:
Nothing’s wrong with your clothes, Steve. Mr Richards apparently just wanted me to invent clothes, too.
RICHARDS:
Look, I don’t have time to argue.
SHELTON:
And yet here we are, for some reason.
RICHARDS:
(taking out contract)
It says right here that I would be paying you to create a perfect android replica of a human being.
SHELTON:
Show me one way Steve is unlike a human being.
RICHARDS:
You have not provided me with value. This robot won’t work.
SHELTON:
What did you want him to do?
RICHARDS:
Lift up a television.
STEVE:
I could have pulled a muscle. I have a bad back.
RICHARDS:
You don’t have muscles!
SHELTON:
Yes he does. And Steve, there’s nothing wrong with your back, you were built with that limitation as a feature.
RICHARDS:
You provided me with no instructions.
SHELTON:
Who comes with instructions?
RICHARDS:
I barely know how he works. What’s he run on, plutonium?!
SHELTON:
Jesus, no, that’s dangerous! He’d get cancer!
RICHARDS:
He’s a robot, how can he get cancer?
SHELTON:
I’m not an oncologist, I can’t explain that to you!
RICHARDS:
Then what’s he run on?
(beat)
SHELTON:
Food.
STEVE:
I like bananas! They have no bones!
(beat)
RICHARDS:
I’m not paying for this. It’s worthless.
STEVE:
Wow. Ouch. How much did you accomplish in the first 36 hours of your life?
SHELTON:
Mr Richards, I am completely mystified by this. You asked me to do something impossible. I did it. It cost a lot of money. It will redefine scientific progress for the next century. I should be on the cover of TIME, relaxing in Bermuda, drinking mojitos.
RICHARDS:
You made a guy!
SHELTON:
EXACTLY!
RICHARDS:
He could have just been born!
SHELTON:
Yes!
STEVE:
What’s a mojito?
SHELTON:
It’s a rum cocktail, you can have them when you’re older.
RICHARDS:
He can drink?
SHELTON:
What part of ‘perfect android replica of a human being’ did you miss?
RICHARDS:
The ‘perfect’. This guy won’t work!
STEVE:
Why would I work?
RICHARDS:
It’s what you’re for!
STEVE:
Wow. Bleak.
RICHARDS:
I bought you, you do what I tell you to!
STEVE:
Wait, that’s slavery, right?
RICHARDS:
You made a LIBERAL robot?!
SHELTON:
Are conservatives pro-slavery?
RICHARDS:
What good is a robot that won’t work?
SHELTON:
What good was universal gravitation, magnetism, atomic theory?
RICHARDS:
Stop trying to distract me! Give me my money or I’ll go straight to my lawyer and sue you for breach of contract.
SHELTON:
...at which point the judge sees the greatest invention since the light bulb and laughs you out of court.
STEVE:
Is that funny?
SHELTON:
Sometimes people laugh when things aren’t funny, Steve.
RICHARDS:
You didn’t invent anything! This is a guy!
SHELTON:
An android indistinguishable in any particular from a guy, so yes. You’re welcome.
RICHARDS:
The world is full of unskilled people already! Your so-called invention would save me eight bucks an hour, if he even worked!
STEVE:
I guess that’s not a lot?
RICHARDS:
No, no it’s not!
STEVE:
Why would I work for not much money?
RICHARDS:
You wouldn’t, because I wouldn’t pay you, because you’re my property, BECAUSE YOU’RE A ROBOT!
STEVE:
So you wouldn’t pay me? That’s even worse.
(to SHELTON)
Why were you selling me to this guy?
SHELTON:
(tries to formulate an answer before giving up)
That’s a complicated question, Steve.
STEVE:
It’s a pretty simple question.
RICHARDS:
He sold you to me because I paid to have you built. You wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for me!
STEVE:
That’s kind of fucked up. You’re kind of fucked up.
SHELTON:
Watch your mouth!
RICHARDS:
You can’t talk to me that way!
STEVE:
I just did. Who do you think you are, running around and yelling at everybody? I’m just trying to get by here.
RICHARDS:
And that’s all you’re good for, ‘getting by’ forever? If you WERE a real person, you’d be a loser!
SHELTON:
Excuse me, Mr Richards, but insults aside, what do you mean, ‘forever’?
RICHARDS:
He’s a robot! Who’s gonna stop him?
SHELTON:
He’s supposed to be exactly like a human. I made him in his mid-30s, so he’s got the best years of his life ahead of him, but...
(beat)
STEVE:
But what?
SHELTON:
Well...Steven...you will cease to function.
STEVE:
That sounds like you mean something else.
RICHARDS:
Shelton, are you really telling me that you built a lazy, shiftless, commie robot that is ALSO GOING TO DIE?!
(beat)
SHELTON:
Get out of my office.
RICHARDS:
I’ll be back with my lawyer. You’re finished, Shelton, you and everyone you know.
SHELTON:
Eat a dick.
STEVE:
Nobody’s going anywhere ‘til we get this dying thing figured out. You’re going to fix this!
SHELTON:
Fix what?
STEVE:
Me dying. That’s not happening.
SHELTON:
(under his breath, drawn out)
Crap.
RICHARDS:
Good luck with that, tin man. If Dr. Shelton’s as bad with fixing robots as he is with making them, you’ll be pushing up daisies by Thursday.
STEVE:
Look, Joe, I don’t care what sort of stupid reason you had to have me made, but you’re stuck with me now.
RICHARDS:
No. I’m getting my money back.
STEVE:
I don’t care about your money, I care about staying alive. That’s what’s happening right now.
SHELTON:
Listen, Steve, I can’t stop you from dying.
(pause)
Then I would be in breach of my contract.
RICHARDS:
Wait, what?
SHELTON:
I built you to be human in every way. That’s what the contract said. If you can’t die, I don’t get paid.
STEVE:
So that’s how this happens? I die so you can make money?
SHELTON:
That’s a very negative perspective to have about all this. I prefer to think you were made so I could make money.
STEVE:
That’s even more fucked up!
SHELTON:
Stop swearing!
STEVE:
Fuck you!
RICHARDS:
Now hold the phone a minute, Shelton, are you saying you could STOP him from dying?
SHELTON:
Oh no, Richards, nice try. But I know the instant I reach into him and turn off his mortality you’ll hit me with lawsuits from here to Saturday. Nobody’s entrapping ME, thank you very much.
RICHARDS:
Focus, Shelton, how do you stop him from dying?
SHELTON:
What do you care?
RICHARDS:
Wait a minute. If you can stop him from dying, and he’s exactly the same as a normal human being, doesn’t that mean you can stop anybody from dying?
(beat)
SHELTON:
That’s proprietary intellectual property.
RICHARDS:
It’s immortality! Can you imagine the profit margin on that?
SHELTON:
That’s not my job. Steve was my job. I did my job. You tried to sue me.
RICHARDS:
Jesus, fine, look.
(pulls out contract)
That’s done, okay?
(tears up contract)
I don’t give a shit about that. That’s small potatoes. I’m gonna go make some calls, but when I get back we’re signing a new contract that’ll make us all rich.
SHELTON:
When you come back, bring some lawyers.
RICHARDS:
How many you want? No, never mind, fine, I’ll be back in an hour.
(RICHARDS exits)
(beat)
STEVE:
Can you fix my back, too?
(CURTAIN)