Roshelle Yee Pui Fong & Matthew Ngamurarri Heffernan's "The Robot Dog" teachers' review

Brief description and distinctive features

When The Robot Dog played at the prestigious Melbourne Theatre Company in 2025, the online news outlet, The Conversation commented that the play “reminds us there are some knowledges we hold that AI will never have.” This is comforting but challenges us to value those knowledges.  A Chinese proverb recurs in the play and this is a poignant reminder of valuing our identity and culture: “When we forget our ancestors we will become a brook without a source, a tree without a root…”

We are always looking for plays for our students and The Robot Dog is certainly relevant, timely and fascinating. It would work well as a close study for year 9, 10 or 11 or part of a Representation unit which explores a range of texts that explore the future and our place in it. It would also work in Stage 6 for a Year 11 Reading to Write unit which could include a range of short texts that explore and investigate the future and the impact and use of AI. Students could then move on to read a range of fiction and nonfiction. The play provides an interesting foundation for Standard students exploring Language, culture and identity in the HSC. The Robot Dog would suit the discursive and persuasive styles of responding and students could find it engaging writing about AI in contemporary Australian life. 

Brief description of The Robot Dog

It is 2042. Janelle and Harry are the two main characters and a couple: Janelle has Cantonese heritage while Harry is a First Nations Man. Janelle’s mother has passed away and Harry and Janelle move into Janelle’s family home where there are many memories and artefacts which compound Janelle’s loss and grief. Both characters are trying to work out how to express their respective cultural identities as well as deal with the demands of life in a futuristic technologically-augmented society. As Janelle and Harry attempt to navigate their work, relationship and job-seeking requirements they find almost every aspect of their life is ‘assisted’ by an AI system (Hus) which monitors their everyday functions, controls the home and provides them with prompts which are at times annoying, paternalistic and jargonistic but often are very funny. This system also provides the house with a very cute robotic therapy dog called Dog. The situations these circumstances generate are both humorous and poignant in raising our awareness and provoking our thinking.

About the playwrights

The Robot Dog is a collaboration between Hong Kong-born multidisciplinary artist Roshelle Yee Pui Fong and Luritja writer and technologist Matthew Ngamurarri Heffernan.

Fong developed the play during the Melbourne Theatre Company’s our Writer’s program in 2021, before the chance discovery of Heffernan building a robot dog as part of his Master’s degree sealed their collaboration. It was further developed during Cybec Scenes in 2022, before being commissioned as part of MTC’s NEXT STAGE Writers’ Program.

There is an interesting insight to the co-writing process on the MTC site.

Roshelle Yee Pui Fong’s writing credits include a range of plays adapted into different countries. In 2022, she was an artist in Creative Australia’s Digital Fellowship program, Assistant Director on Melbourne Theatre Company’s Laurinda and a writer for Cybec Scenes, while completing her Masters of Theatre (Writing) at Victorian College of the Arts, and on Melbourne Theatre Company’s Artistic Associate panel (2022-24). Roshelle has also been developing new work in Australian Plays Transform’s Mid-Career Playwrights’ group and is an advisor for Contemporary Asian Australian Performance’s (CAAP) Artist Reference Group.

Matthew Ngamurarri Heffernan is a Pintupi-Luritja creative-technologist, ANU PhD student at the school of Cybernetics, and a writer from central Australia. He is a champion of sharing Indigenous voices through technology and has worked extensively to share and conserve the knowledge of Indigenous peoples. Through his previous role as lead developer at Indigital, Australia’s first Indigenous tech education company, Matthew helped to make the digital landscape more accessible to and inclusive of Indigenous young people. Matthew also worked on the development of Indigemoji and Kaytetemoji, Australia’s first brand of Indigenous emojis designed by young Indigenous children and guided by Elders on Country. Matthew has written for Indigenous X, The Guardian and Red Room Poetry. He says “Cybernetics definitely helped me think about how I wanted to frame some of the story,”

Distinctive features of The Robot Dog

• Set in 2042, the show is a futuristic glimpse into a world hardwired by artificial intelligence, as told through the perspectives of Janelle, a woman of Cantonese heritage, and her partner Harry, of Luritja descent.
• The Robot Dog is short at 41 pages which allows accessibility and coverage of the play, its key ideas and distinctive features in about 2-3 weeks of lessons.
• There is a Prologue and the play’s action starts two months later. The action takes place over eight days and these are titled Day 1, Day 2 etc.
• The play takes place in Wing Lam’s house.
• It is becoming increasingly common for more than one cultural language to appear in texts. Not only does this disrupt the primacy of English but is validates and celebrates other cultures. In The Robot Dog it is common to see the Cantonese in both traditional characters and Anglicised beside the English dialogue.
• The dialogue is fast paced and contains endearing humour.
• The dialogue of the two AI characters (the robotic dog and Hus) have a distinctive style of speaking and word choice which both adds some humour and poignancy in their observations.
• The references to both Cantonese and First Nations culture add interest and insight.
• Published in February 2025 by Currency Press it was first performed in Melbourne in March 2025 and the play has been selected on the 2025 Victorian VCE Drama list.
• The Melbourne Theatre Company some excellent stills from the Melbourne production and a variety of resources available to teachers who need to register: https://www.mtc.com.au/education/education-hub/the-robot-dog-pre-show-resource
• The Currency edition contains some valuable notes from the playwrights especially from Matthew Ngamurarri Heffernan who outlines the play’s purpose.

Ways to use The Robot Dog in the classroom

Going to the theatre is not necessarily the experience of your students so the concept of the purpose of drama and the physicality of a play may not be familiar to them. Like film and fiction, plays are often a vehicle for social commentary and Australia has a rich tradition of playwrights who explore contemporary social issues on stage. Alana Valentine is one of the most prolific contemporary playwrights alongside Andrew Bovell, Suzie Miller, Jane Harrison, Leah Purcell and Kate Mulvaney. Playwrights like Ray Lawler, Michael Gow, David Williamson, Alex Buzo and Dorothy Hewett were trailblazers in exploring Australian stories. 

Like any text in the classroom, it is important to establish confidence with your students. A point of concrete relevance is the play’s title: who has had any exposure to a robotic dog? Maybe share some images. Why do dogs often feature in our stories? What can a robotic dog not do as well as a real dog (or perhaps it can!) Share the different examples of AI in students’ everyday life to establish how prevalent it is e.g. robotic surgeries, Alexa, Siri, Google, self-driving trains and cars, chatbots. This quote from Albert Einstein is fascinating in the context of The Robot Dog.

‘The mere formulation of a problem is often far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.’ Albert Einstein

To build confidence and orient students to the play share the above synopsis of the play, its distinctive features and this introduction from Matthew Ngamurarri Heffernan from the Currency edition which captures the play’s purpose:

Through The Robot Dog, I wanted to explore some questions. People throughout history have responded to changes in their environment by adapting or adopting new technologies/modalities. With this comes the stories, the mythologies that interrogate and establish our relationship with the technology. We’re at a time now where ‘unprecedented’ is the precedent. What does it mean for humanity to have technologies that resemble us? What are the mythologies that we can construct to understand ourselves in relation to this new technology and world? How do our unique and ancient cultures maintain authenticity while adapting/adopting? Can a robot have a skin name? 

Consider also sharing this interview with the Melbourne production’s actors with your students to make it all real: https://www.mtc.com.au/discover-more/backstage/the-robot-dog

Introduce the play to the class

This short video was posted as a pre-show resource by the Melbourne Theatre Company: https://www.mtc.com.au/education/education-hub/the-robot-dog-pre-show-resource. Included on this site are five questions for students to consider after watching the video.

Below the video are some excellent explanations of AI including its benefits, its evolution and its risks to our future. These would be valuable notes for students to read and perhaps use in a feature article or persuasive speech.

The Robot Dog is a script for performance, so students need to use the metalanguage of drama and be aware of such features as the stage directions, set details and how the characters interact in the small space of each scene.

Susan Hoddinott, a friend and colleague, has written extensively on the importance of treating drama texts differently from prose:

Teaching Drama can be one of the most daunting, yet one of the most rewarding experiences, for an English teacher. Drama is one of the oldest literary forms. It has a discreet body of knowledge that spans 2,500 years. It has its own terminology. It is closely linked to poetry as, like poetry, it springs from the very origins of story-telling and the oral tradition. The understanding of the form and features strengthen a student’s understanding of how theatre is a distinctively visual, and auditory world.

Setting refers to where and when the action takes place. The playscript tells us it is 2042 (Year of the Water Dog), the oldest house on 3 Creswick Avenue, Bulleke-bek (formerly known as Brunswick)

The Stage directions become instructions for the director to shape decisions for the actors, set designers, costume creators and lighting engineers including significant opening details which quickly establish key elements of mood and characterisation.

In a play dialogue is the driver: it is critical to the play’s meaning and power. What the characters say and how they say it will propel the action, create the mood, and contribute to the characterisation so the specific word choices are significant.

The dialogue in this play is characterised by:

• Interaction with other characters
• Longer speeches
• The different style of language used by Dog and Hus

Structure of the action: the play comprises a Prologue and a single Act over eight days. Each day captures a different part of the story like a series of eight snapshots each representing Janelle and Harry’s relationship, their progress re their job situation, their changing perspectives about grief, loss and culture and their evolving relationships with Dog and Hus.

The exposition of any text is important but in a play the audience needs to be quickly oriented to the main characters, the narrative arc and the play’s style. In The Robot Dog this partly occurs in the Prologue and the action and dialogue of Day 1.

Ways the Prologue establishes key features of the play

The Prologue establishes some key narrative elements of the story as well as some features of the setting which will recur:

• Set in the recent past Janelle’s mother, Chan Wing Lam is still alive
• DOG is there so we know that the dog was part of Chan Wing Lam’s life
• Chan Wing Lam has a traditional Chinese altar which has incense, oranges and rice
• We can see the combination of English, Cantonese and Cantonese characters
• The exit of Chan Wing Lam is full of poignancy as this heralds her death.

Day 1 occurs ‘Two months later’.

List the key narrative features of this ‘scene’ and how the playwrights have positioned the audience to experience this important section of the exposition.

What important detail are we given about DOG and Hus?

In what ways does the dialogue of Janelle, Harry, Dog and Hus differ?

How do the characters of Dog and Hus differ?

After exploring the play divide the class into small groups and according to the size of your class, each to take 1-2 periods of time/days: with close analysis of this ‘day’ what are the key ideas explores and how is this achieved?

Sustained response:

A cheeky comedy set in an all-too-believable future, The Robot Dog sinks its teeth into some of the most provocative and challenging questions of our time.
In what ways does The Robot Dog explore “some of the most provocative and challenging questions of our time.” In your response make close reference to 3-4 ‘days’ from different parts of the play.

Tasks to take the play further

Group discussion around the title and the cover

• Why is the play called The Robot Dog?
• Does the cover effectively capture the key content and ideas of the play- in what ways? In groups design an alternative cover.

Writing a feature article

The Melbourne production director Amy Sole commented that “the best theatre doesn’t just tell a story -it wrestles with something real.” Write a feature article in the discursive style that expands the ideas in Amy Sole’s comments. Use The Robot Dog as your main text to discuss and include other plays, films, novels, podcasts that “wrestles with something real.”

The discursive style gives you the freedom to be witty, clever and have some fun. Consider some interesting and quirky subheadings and be sure to incorporate images and captions.

Debating the concept of AI

Divide the class into two groups: the affirmative and the negative to prepare a debate on this topic: AI is our best friend. Each group should work collaboratively on the speeches for their first, second and third speakers. Encourage the students to use an AI platform to research their topic. Choose your best three speakers to present your case as a formal debate. Use the evidence from the six speakers to construct a persuasive or discursive piece of writing to explore the benefits and challenges of AI.

Relevant details in relation to the new NSW English K-10 syllabus

Text requirements: The Robot Dog is a drama text written by an Australian playwright. It contains cultural, social and gender perspectives. 

Concepts: context • perspective• representation

Relevant NSW English K-10 Syllabus content

Reading, viewing and listening to texts 

A student uses a range of personal, creative and critical strategies to interpret complex texts EN5-RVL-01

Reading, viewing and listening skills

• Develop a deeper understanding of themes, ideas or attitudes by revisiting and reinterpreting texts to find new meaning

Reading, viewing and listening for meaning

• Analyse the main ideas and thematic concerns represented in texts
• Investigate how layers of meaning are constructed in texts and how this shapes a reader’s understanding and engagement
• Clarify and justify personal responses to texts, explaining how aspects of the text, such as character, genre, tone, salience or voice, position a reader and influence these personal responses
• Analyse how the use of language forms and features in texts have the capacity to create multiple meanings
• Analyse how language use evolves over time and is influenced by social and technological changes and developments

Reading for challenge, interest and enjoyment

• Read increasingly complex texts that challenge thinking, pique interest, enhance enjoyment and provoke a personal response
• Consider how the social, cultural and ethical positions represented in texts represent, affirm or challenge views of the world
• Evaluate experiences of reading by sharing responses to texts
• Evaluate the ways reading texts help us understand ourselves and make connections to others and the world

Reflecting

• Reflect on how reading, viewing and listening to texts has informed and inspired learning
• Reflect on how an appreciation of texts can be enhanced through re-reading, and close or critical study
• Understand and reflect on the value of reading for personal growth and cultural richness
• Reflect on how reading promotes a broad and balanced understanding of the world and enables students to explore wider universal issues

Understanding and responding to texts A

A student analyses how meaning is created through the use and interpretation of increasingly complex language forms, features and structures EN5-URA-01

Code and convention

• Use metalanguage effectively to analyse how meaning is constructed by linguistic and stylistic elements in texts
• Analyse how language forms, features and structures, specific or conventional to a text’s medium, context, purpose and audience, shape meaning, and experiment with this understanding through written, spoken, visual and multimodal responses

Connotation, imagery and symbol

• Analyse how figurative language and devices can be used to represent complex ideas, thoughts and feelings to contribute to larger patterns of meaning in texts, and experiment with this in own texts

Point of view

• Examine elements of focalisation, such as omniscience, limitations, indirect speech, tone, reliability and multiple narrators, and how these interact to shape perceptions of meaning in texts, and apply this in own texts

Characterisation

• Analyse how engaging, dynamic and complex characters are constructed in texts using language features and structures, and use these features and structures in own texts
• Explore how characters in texts can be lifelike constructions with whom audiences establish intellectual and emotional connections, and can be perceived to reflect, challenge or subvert particular values and attitudes
• Analyse how characters can serve structural roles in narrative, such as foils and drivers of action and conflict, and manipulate these ideas when composing own texts

Narrative

• Analyse how narrative conventions vary across genres, modes, media and contexts and how they can be used to represent ideas and values and shape responses, and apply this understanding in own texts
• Explore how narratives can represent and shape personal and shared identities, values and experiences

Understanding and responding to texts B

A student evaluates how texts represent ideas and experiences, and how they can affirm or challenge values and attitudes EN5-URB-01

Theme

• Analyse how themes can be understood to underpin cohesive meaning in texts, and apply this understanding in own texts
• Appreciate the role of the audience in perceiving themes and how these themes can offer insights into an author’s perspective

Perspective and context

• Understand how the personal perspectives of audiences are a product of historical and cultural contexts
• Analyse how texts can be understood or interpreted from different perspectives, and experiment with this idea in own texts
• Evaluate how texts can position audiences to accept, challenge or reject particular perspectives of the world, and reflect on this in own texts
• Analyse how elements of an author’s personal, cultural and political contexts can shape their perspectives and representation of ideas, including form and purpose
• Appreciate how all communication is a product of cultural context
• Explain how texts affirm or challenge established cultural attitudes and values in different contexts
• Research, select and sequence appropriate evidence from texts and reliable sources to construct cohesive and authoritative arguments

Style

• Analyse how the distinctive aesthetic qualities and stylistic features of a text can shape and be shaped by its purpose, and experiment with this in own texts
• Examine the way an author’s distinct personal style shapes meaning in their work
• Appreciate how the style of a text can represent larger ideas of literary movements and genres

Expressing ideas and composing texts A

A student crafts personal, creative and critical texts for a range of audiences by experimenting with and controlling language forms and features to shape meaning EN5-ECA-01

Writing

• Select and adapt appropriate codes, conventions and structures to shape meaning when composing written texts that are analytical, informative, persuasive, discursive and/or imaginative
• Develop a personal and informed voice that generates ideas and positions an audience through selection of appropriate word-level language and text-level features
• Experiment with language to create tone, atmosphere and mood
• Compose visual and multimodal texts to express complex ideas, using a range of digital technologies where appropriate

Speaking

• Select effective rhetorical strategies to position an audience and evoke an emotional response
• Communicate complex information, ideas and viewpoints using purposeful verbal and/or nonverbal language, including gestures, to emphasise key points, enhance engagement and clarify meaning
• Deliver spoken, signed or communicated texts with engaging use of intonation, emphasis, volume, pace and timing
• Participate in and lead a range of informal discussions about texts and ideas, including analytical, speculative and exploratory talk, to consolidate personal understanding and generate new ideas
• Use the structural conventions of analytical writing purposefully, including a well-articulated and considered thesis, a sustained and cohesive progression of supporting points, and a rhetorically effective conclusion
• Experiment with the process of transformation to create texts with new meaning
• Experiment with a range of poetic forms to explore ideas and express personal perspectives
• Craft concise sentences to suit text purpose
• Craft elaborated noun and/or verb groups for effect, clarity or complexity of description
• Apply punctuation to suit text purpose, support clarity and meaning, for effect, and to control reader response
• Select technical vocabulary to write with accuracy in a range of modes and registers appropriate to audience, purpose, form and context
• Use a variety of grammatical features to describe relationships between complex ideas
• Make vocabulary choices that enhance stylistic features of writing, and shape meaning through connotation

Expressing ideas and composing texts B

A student uses processes of planning, monitoring, revising and reflecting to purposefully develop and refine composition of texts EN5-ECB-01

Planning, monitoring and revising

• Engage with model texts to develop and refine features, structures and stylistic approaches in own work
• Develop an effective thesis for extended analytical and persuasive texts that is based on critical thinking about a text or topic
• Produce co-constructed complex texts to represent a diversity of ideas and values
• Select from a range of collaborative drafting strategies and feedback processes to improve clarity, meaning and effect in texts

Reflecting

• Reflect on own texts, using technical vocabulary to explain and evaluate authorial decisions appropriate to the target audience and specific purpose
• Discuss the pleasures, challenges and successes experienced in the processes of understanding and composing
• Evaluate the effectiveness of compositional choices in writing that have been influenced by elements of other texts, using specific examples
• Evaluate own ability to plan, monitor and revise during the composition process, and how this can improve clarity, cohesion and effect

(English K-10 Syllabus 2022 © NSW Education Standards Authority for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, 2023) 

Connecting texts

There are a few options in exploring texts which connect to The Robot Dog:

1. As a play which explores contemporary social issues and then move to other plays which also fulfill this role to consider the wider theatre landscape as a vehicle for social commentary.

2. Explore the play as a Science Fiction text and move to other Science Fiction texts which have explored the possibilities of the future. Consider a feature article or essay which explores The Robot Dog and at least 2 other texts.