THE HARMNF Live/VR Hybrid Returns to Caveat Following Los Angeles Run

The Harmnf — Kevin (as a robot) Laibson's live/VR hybrid solo performance — returns to Caveat for two upcoming performances on Sunday, January 25 and Sunday, February 22, both at 2:30 p.m., following a recent engagement at the Elysian Theater.

Adapted from Anton Chekhov's The Harmfulness of Tobacco and directed by Parker Denton, The Harmnf takes the form of a lecture that continually derails. Performed in a VR headset, Laibson attempts to deliver a talk about his failed experiment adapting Chekhov with AI tools-just as Chekhov's original lecturer once tried (and failed) to give a talk on tobacco. What unfolds is part confession, part comedy, and part philosophical meltdown: a live performance about a mind that cannot stay on topic, even when it desperately wants to.

As the lecture keeps slipping sideways, the piece quietly reveals itself as a meditation on the ways technology promises connection while often deepening isolation-and on the strange comfort of systems, scripts, and machines for people who already feel slightly out of sync with the world around them.

The production is built using Stage Presence, Agile Lens's newly developed live-performance XR platform, which enables real-time motion capture and virtual presence for hybrid audiences. Rather than presenting technology as spectacle, The Harmnf places it under strain, allowing friction, failure, and vulnerability to become part of the theatrical event itself.

Since premiering at The Brick's Interrobang Festival, The Harmnf has continued to evolve through presentations at Worlds in Play, Young Ethel's Bar & Stage, and most recently in Los Angeles. These upcoming Caveat performances mark the next iteration of the work as it continues to adapt alongside the rapidly shifting conversation around AI, authorship, and creative labor.