All the mess you made: The Made in the making

All the Mess You Made: The Making of The Made

Acclaimed novelist Emily Perkins returns to full-time writing with a play that is a complex, cosmopolitan, contemporary, and funny story which could be a game-changer for New Zealand theatre.

Emily Perkins: A Life in Writing

Emily Perkins, at 52, discusses the chaos of life: the frenetic pace, the balance between family and work, the impacts of aging on women and men, the need for connection, and the intersection of science and art. She delves into what the future might hold for humanity with our growing reliance on artificial intelligence.

In just over a month, her play The Made, which explores these themes, will premiere at Auckland’s ASB Waterfront Theatre. This is her first professional play written from scratch and her first new full-length work since 2016 when she co-wrote a film adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s The Rehearsal.

“Having work out there is nerve-wracking,” Emily says. “It’s a funny conundrum that I think a lot of writers feel. You want the work published and out in the world, you want to try to connect with people, and the quality of that connection really matters.”

The Journey Back to Full-Time Writing

Emily’s return to full-time writing is driven by two projects she is passionate about: The Made and a novel. While she worked on both simultaneously, she prefers not to discuss the novel in detail yet, but it is expected to be released next year.

“Quite a lot of my thinking in the play about loneliness, for both the creator and the creature, came from there. I thought a woman who feels a bit unseen for herself might be looking for a friend,” she explains.

The Made: A Play for Our Times

The Made centers on Alice, a scientist in her 50s who is an expert in creating humanoid robots. Her greatest creation is Arie, a reprogrammed sexbot. However, Alice’s life begins to unravel as her child leaves home, her marriage breaks up, and she becomes increasingly frustrated with her younger male colleagues and boss.

“Early on in the drafting, I posed the question to myself, ‘If Dr. Frankenstein were a woman living now, what would she create?'” Emily says.

“I like work that pulls us out of that trance to see things through another lens – or work that just draws our attention to those things we have internalized, that makes us question it. I feel like, to me, it wants to explore the mess and the ironies and the struggles and the pain and the delight and roll around in it.”

For more information, visit the Auckland Theatre Company.