The Robotic Stage — Theatre and Technology: Transcontinental Dialogues

At a time when artificial intelligence and metaverse algorithms are rapidly dissolving the traditional boundaries of art, Yemeni researcher, author, and journalist Hayel Ali Al-Mathabi’s new book, "The Robotic Stage", places humanity's oldest performing art in a bold confrontation with its digital future.

Set to be published soon in London by Anaween Books in English, the volume carries the evocative title: "THE ROBOTIC STAGE: Theater and Technology: Transcontinental Dialogues". More than an academic documentation, the work is a transcontinental expedition tracking how technology is fundamentally reshaping the theatrical industry.

Divided into five rich chapters, the book opens with a profound introduction where the author posits a provocative thesis: "Theatre is the father of technology." From there, the volume plunges into 13 transcontinental dialogues with pioneering innovators across Europe and the Americas, offering a comprehensive survey of global performance shifts.

In the first chapter, The Theatre of Robots*, the author leads readers into laboratories where machinery merges with the human body. Here, he converses with Dutch creative robotics scientist Edwin Dertien, Dutch puppetry artist Ulrike Quade—who integrates industrial KUKA arms with human performance—alongside Czech GPT-robotics developer Tomáš Stodník and Romanian telematics theatre pioneer Marina Hanjano.

The second chapter transports the reader into the realms of virtual reality and the metaverse under the heading *The Theatre of VR, Metaverse and Interactive facilities*. This section highlights insights from British digital performance scholar Professor Steve Dixon, Hollywood VR pioneer Brendan Bradley, and Guy Gadney’s groundbreaking work in merging AI with drama to create interactive narratives that adapt in real time to audience dialogue.

Nor does the book overlook the economic and structural dimensions of the digital shift. The third chapter explores British visionary Tanya Vital’s concepts of transforming theatrical performances into tokenized digital assets, while the final chapters examine the future of theatrical academia through figures such as Maria Delgado, Vice-Principal of The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, and Marcus Lobbes, Artistic Director of the Academy for Theatre and Digitality in Germany.

Al-Mathabi concludes his work with a philosophical epilogue tackling an enduring, existential question: How much of theatre's centrality remains as it continuously shrinks in the wake of historical mediums—from writing, television, and cinema, to today's cutting-edge digital technologies?