The Power Plant

Pedro Reyes: Manufacturing Mischief

Fri May 25 2018

3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

$25 Adults \ $15 Children

Canadian Stage,
26 Berkeley St

Puppets in Manufacturing Mischief, 2018. Photo: Sham Sthankiya

The Power Plant co-presents Mexican artist Pedro Reyes' Manufacturing Mischief, a puppet play written by Paul Hufker and directed by Meghan Finn (Co-Artistic Director, The Tank, NYC), with Canadian Stage.

Manufacturing Mischief is a satirical play that features puppets -- each made in Japan by puppet masters in the Bunraku tradition -- based on Noam Chomsky, Karl Marx, Ayn Rand, Elon Musk and Tiny Trump. The work was conceived as part of Reyes' residency as the inaugural Dasha Zhukova Distinguished Visiting Artist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Art, Science & Technology. Reyes was teaching a course on the intersection of the West’s fixation on technological advancement and the global political climate, and so the play deals with issues of technology, ideology and the current political climate from a critical perspective.

Brilliant American linguist Noam Chomsky is headed to a Silicon Valley convention to judge a competition for new Artificial Intelligence (AI) devices. One of Chomsky's prized students, Millie, has a device entered in the competition which is hosted by none other than South African inventor, Elon Musk. Millie's device, called the Print-A-Friend, works by materializing the author of any book inserted into it. Chaos ensues, as Ayn Rand, Tiny Trump, Karl Marx, and others are reanimated -- and the Print-A-Friend is stolen! Chomsky, Millie and Marx must fend off the forces of capitalistic evil and the damage they might do with this new AI machine.

While serving as entertainment, the play speaks to scholars and a broader audience -- including youth!

Pedro Reyes (born Mexico City, 1972) was the inaugural Dasha Zhukova Distinguished Visiting Artist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Art, Science and Technology. He previously exhibited his work Sanatorium at The Power Plant in the summer of 2014. Reyes has exhibited extensively across the globe including exhibitions at the Queens Art Museum, New York (2013), Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo (2013), Boston Museum of Fine Arts (2013), Lisson Gallery, London (2013), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2011). Reyes has also been presented in numerous group exhibitions and festivals including the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2013), Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2013), Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2013), White Chapel Gallery, London (2013), Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco (2013), Liverpool Biennial (2012), dOCUMENTA (13), and the 50th Venice Biennale (2003).