About 20 minutes into “Co-Founders,” American Conservatory Theater’s new musical running through July 6, the show stopped.
During the show’s fourth number, “Valley to Vallejo,” the show’s background projections, used in lieu of sets, flickered in and out. After the number wrapped, house lights came up and we were told that the advanced system used to bring Dadvatar, the lead character’s artificial intelligence replication of her dead father, to life was having problems and that the show was paused until they could fix the issue. Phil Wong, Frak the Person and Anthony Veneziale freestyled at the front of the house for a few minutes until we were told that the issue would need more time to resolve. About 20 minutes later, the show continued.
Opening to a technical error is not a bad omen in and of itself; these things happen. However, opening a show centered around tech startups through a hopeful and optimistic lens belies a bigger problem at the show’s core.
“Co-Founders” is an original hip-hop musical that traces the story of Esata, a young Black girl in Oakland trying her hardest to break big into the tech world. After sending her application to The Accelerator, a huge tech conglomerate, she gets rejected and hacks her way in. Esata partners up with Conway, a rich white guy, to pitch his middling product while she works on her own: Dadvatar. Her project catches the attention of an investor, and soon enough, she’s on the rise at the company. But does success always come at the cost of independence? Who do you serve when you rise to the 1%?
As a musical and as a piece of entertainment, this show is undeniable. Its opening night audience was rapturous with cheers and applause after every number. The cast is extremely talented, and Aneesa Folds carries the show as Esata, showcasing an innate stage presence and a true knockout voice. The songs are mostly catchy with a few persisting as incessant earworms.
Yet, when the time comes to ask the hard questions about tech, capitalism and the Bay Area, the show doesn’t rise to the challenge. When Esata realizes how dangerous her work may be, the answers provided by the show feel more superficial than they are willing to deeply probe into our reliance on this tech in the first place. Surveillance tech is demonstrably bad per the show, so why are we driven to pursue it in the first place? These thorny questions, ones that reflect our times, are quickly raised, more briefly addressed and discarded in favor of more easy listening hip-hop tunes.
The safety of the narrative also applies to its songs. Each track is completely catchy and serviceable; again, this show is pretty much foolproof entertainment. But there is little daring. Each song meanders through its energy-raising quota to get to the next moments of AI worship. “Valley to Vallejo” is catchy, and Bay Area residents will have fun doing the Leo point at different name drops, “Pivot” is an earworm of ungodly proportions, and “This is the Bay” is powerfully performed. Yet, each song leaves plenty on the table.
This is to say nothing of the wonderful ensemble, all of whom fit their roles like gloves and deliver exactly what this show asks of them. It’s just that the show isn’t asking very much. In the brief moments where risk feels palpable or potent, the safer path is taken.
My own ire with AI factors into this, with Dadvatar feeling like the show’s gravest miscalculation. That this element’s resolution acknowledges AI’s flaws and shows how it will never stand in for people, there is still a rancid feeling to it being treated as some sort of emotional hinge in the first place. Marvel Studios’ “Ironheart” similarly treats dead loved ones as replicable through AI, even if for a brief time, and this normalization of artificial replicas of the dead is eerie.
A show so intrinsically tied to the culture and history of the Bay is promising, and “Co-Founders” often delivers on a large scale, but it feels too safe and misjudged to really soar. Elements coalesce far less than they don’t, and when your final number includes your hero, a young Black woman, clad in a costume reminiscent of the Black Panther Party uniform while preaching to invest in her new startup’s first 100 millionaires, there is something wrong with the code.
