Brie Keatley
It’s been a while since I’ve left a theatre show with more questions than answers. But this is what Hey Siri is - a cerebral carousel full of questions about memory, technology and control.
It is difficult to describe Hey Siri in terms of plot as there really is none. This is not a detriment to the piece however as it asks the audience questions of memory and actuality that we bafflingly can’t respond to. The show presents different scenarios with Micky Delahunty (who also wrote the show) and their granddaughter Lucy Delahunty-Versteegh interrupting with either a cerebral questioning monologue or asking Siri some seriously tricky questions.
A show this absurd lives and dies on the commitment from its cast and luckily for Hey Siri they’ve got this in abundance. I am particularly entranced by the chaotic energy shared between Billie Deganutti and Parekawa Finlay. The pair bounce off each other with incredible chemistry, even when playing an egg and a gingerbread man respectively. Jono Weston also pops in for a scene or two to join the mayhem of Deganutti and Finlay but my favourite contribution by Weston is his incredible live soundtracking. (This is not to say his performance isn’t great - it is). The bloopy clown music that accompanies some of the action scratches my brain in just the right way. Delahunty is equally enthralling as a fallacy obsessed straight man and Delahunty-Versteegh as a typical Gen Z’er, always on their phone. I do question the need to pause the action constantly and have them take a photo on their phone. While the picture we see projected later is hilarious, I found it was jarring for the action to pause like that sometimes.
I believe Hey Siri is an examination of the tech generation’s need to know everything. We have been given a super computer in the palm of our hands so why is it so far-fetched to believe that we can’t know the secrets of the universe? And why can’t Siri love us back? All these questions are explored nonsensically in Delahunty’s mindfuck of a script and it’s for the audience to find their own answers.
Hey Siri is on at Te Auaha from the 26th February to the 1st of March at 9 pm. You can find tickets here.
A show this absurd lives and dies on the commitment from its cast and luckily for Hey Siri they’ve got this in abundance. I am particularly entranced by the chaotic energy shared between Billie Deganutti and Parekawa Finlay. The pair bounce off each other with incredible chemistry, even when playing an egg and a gingerbread man respectively. Jono Weston also pops in for a scene or two to join the mayhem of Deganutti and Finlay but my favourite contribution by Weston is his incredible live soundtracking. (This is not to say his performance isn’t great - it is). The bloopy clown music that accompanies some of the action scratches my brain in just the right way. Delahunty is equally enthralling as a fallacy obsessed straight man and Delahunty-Versteegh as a typical Gen Z’er, always on their phone. I do question the need to pause the action constantly and have them take a photo on their phone. While the picture we see projected later is hilarious, I found it was jarring for the action to pause like that sometimes.
I believe Hey Siri is an examination of the tech generation’s need to know everything. We have been given a super computer in the palm of our hands so why is it so far-fetched to believe that we can’t know the secrets of the universe? And why can’t Siri love us back? All these questions are explored nonsensically in Delahunty’s mindfuck of a script and it’s for the audience to find their own answers.
Hey Siri is on at Te Auaha from the 26th February to the 1st of March at 9 pm. You can find tickets here.