While Sareesh Sudhakaran has directed a couple of short films and even a feature film earlier, with Funny Robots, he makes his foray into theatre as a writer and director. The Science Fiction comedy play comprises six short acts, and is based on the premise – what if robots looked like humans and want to take over the world?

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“I love Science Fiction,” the director tells us, adding that he wanted to tackle something different and something he personally enjoys.

“Also, comedy comes naturally to me, so I decided to marry the two,” he adds. The five actors – Shrey Gambhir, Saif Hyder, Dipika Pandey, Himanshu Shekhar and Gaurav Venkatesh – auditioned for their roles, and improvised on the text. Created as a homage to Czech writer Karel ÄŒapek's Rossum's Universal Robots, Sareesh took the larger idea from the landmark play written in 1920, as he found he could not replicate it. “It was written really long ago and the ideas are pretty old. Also, it's a serious play. In our play, we starte from the beginning where the first robot has been unveiled to the world and with each act, we progress into the future, and it reaches its logical conclusion at the end,” reveals Sareesh, adding that there is a twist in the end for the audience.

Using comedy and humour as a device to tell the story was the director's call. “I did not want to give gyaan to the audience. It's more like showing them the situation and knowing that the audience is intelligent enough to figure it out,” he adds.

Where: OverAct Alternative Theatre Space, Bungalow 190, Aram Nagar 2, Andheri West

When: November 3 and 4, 6.30 pm and 9 p