Dragon I - Perth Festival
- 23 hours ago
- 3 min read
Reviewed by Kate O'Sullivan
Dragon I, the newest collaboration from James Berlyn and Adam Kelly, sets out to grapple with one of the most pressing questions facing artists today: what happens to storytelling in an era of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence?
From the outset, the show invites the audience into the act of creation. Each person is handed a pencil and paper and encouraged to draw their own dragon. Early in the performance the crowd collectively invents a single dragon, calling out details that are assembled live and projected onto screens. It is playful and collaborative, and for a moment the room feels like a shared creative workshop. That participatory energy becomes the entry point for the show’s larger argument: that the current business model of AI systems relies on absorbing and replicating the labour of human creativity.
The performance centres on Kelly, whose enthusiasm for dragons and imaginative play is genuine and infectious. Yet he often appears uncomfortable on stage, pacing frequently and relying heavily on a printed script. This often interrupts the rhythm of the piece. When Kelly loses his train of thought and glances down to reorient himself, the energy of the room dips and the audience’s connection with him becomes more fragile.
This is not solely a criticism of the performer so much as a question of staging and process. Kelly’s presence has a spontaneous quality at times that could be a real asset to the material, but the structure does not always accommodate it. If the scripted text had been integrated into the design – for instance displayed on screens above the audience, as we saw in another work this Festival – it may have opened up the performance, allowing the audience to better share in Kelly’s thinking process rather than momentarily stepping outside it. Unfortunately, with the staging the way it is, we the audience lose the true humanity of these moments, because we don't get that human connection with the performer.
A strong counterpoint arrives through Jade Del Borello, who moves between multiple roles and also appears as an artificial assistant. Del Borello performs the AI persona with eerie precision, delivering lines with a calm authority that contrasts sharply with the messy humanity of the creative process unfolding on stage. When this character enters the story, the show briefly finds a deeper dramatic tension, particularly in its closing moments.
Dragon I ultimately functions as a kind of demonstration of how generative AI operates – not just technically, but culturally and psychologically. By asking audiences to create something as simple as a dragon, the work highlights how imagination emerges from countless personal choices, experiences and influences. The show argues that when AI systems replicate those outputs, they also risk flattening the very human process that produced them.
What remains less clear is who the show is primarily for. The colourful drawings, interactive prompts and high-energy delivery suggest a younger audience, yet scattered swearing and more complex ideas about AI’s cultural impact make it less suitable for children. For adults, the playful tone can occasionally feel a little patronising, as though the production hesitates to fully commit to either a whimsical aesthetic or a sharper critique.
Still, Dragon I asks worthwhile questions about creativity, ownership and the future of artistic work. In a festival filled with technically ambitious productions, its most interesting moments come from something much simpler: a room full of people drawing dragons, and being reminded that imagination still begins with a human hand holding a pencil.
Reviewer Note: Tickets for this review were provided by Perth Festival.
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