The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: The Antiquities

By Ross

In the darkness and the hum, we prepare ourselves for what will follow. “Thank you for coming,” the two that appear out of nowhere. They are here to take us on a journey backward and forwards in a boomeranged loop, through decades of the “late human age” of existence smushed into an expansive frame for our enlightenment. The Antiquities is, most determinedly a Jordan Harrison (Marjorie Prime) creation, aimed at unwrapping and unpacking our past and future, and our obsession with the art of creation, whether it be monsters or Robyns, in regards to the ever-evolving act of computing and artificial intelligence. It’s a big swing, this wisely curated exhibition of a play, determined and epically unnerving in its intellectual and complex panoramas, that finds deeply constructed art in its bleak curated output.

The full title of this exceptionally well-crafted play, A Tour of the Permanent Collection in the Museum of Late Human Antiquities, is a construct that lives in the backward-looking future, leaning on the idea of museum-quality exhibitionist dioramas, telling a tale of creationism, and destructivism, depending on whose frame you are looking through. “Imagine you can feel” we are instructed, as the set, designed dynamically by Paul Steinberg (Broadway’s M. Butterfly), with superb lighting by Tyler Micoleau (PH’s Familiar) and sound by Christopher Darbassie (Roundabout’s The Counter), unveils scene after scene, dutifully notated above with the year they are representing. Each vignette, starting with the historic (and magnificently reformed) seeding moment when Mary Shelley conjures up the horror story of Frankenstein, takes us on a step-by-step journey to a time years in our future when the creator has become the prey, technology has become our enemy, and life has found its way backward because of its own sense of progress. hundreds of years from today.

Costumed magnificently by Brenda Abbandandolo (Broadway’s Mary Jane), the cast of nine; Cindy Cheung (PH’s Log Cabin), Marchánt Davis (Public/Broadway’s Ain’t No Mo’), Layan Elwazani (Broadway’s The Band’s Visit), Andrew Garman (LCT’s Greater Clements) Julius Rinzel (PPAS’s Be More Chill), Aria Shahghasemi (MTC’s Prayer for the French Republic), Kristen Sieh (Vineyard’s Scene Partners), Ryan Spahn (Off-Broadway’s Daniel’s Husband), and Amelia Workman (Ars Nova’s The Lucky Ones); find exacting formulas for unpacking the escalation of the destruction and elimination of those they portray, in representations of human forms and interactions. Each tenderly constructed framing features a piece of telling technology that reflects humanity in all its creative formulations, from a rotary phone to a clarinet, that elevates the museum quality creations set out before us.

It’s an unraveling worthy of its excellent recreations, and as directed with elegance and creative intelligence by David Cromer (Broadway’s The Sound Inside) and Caitlin Sullivan (NYTW’s Sanctuary City), The Antiquities asks us to observe and feel as if we are one of those we observe and feel. At first, it feels somewhat cold and distancing before the boomerang effect leads us back into the core; before the humanized A.I. is invited, like a robin, into our home, engaging with us in ways that make us feel safe enough to share parts of us that we wouldn’t typically want to. But it does watch us in those intimate moments, learning and recording for future use. It gives us whiplashed scenarios of reconsidering when things could have gone differently if we only didn’t let progress strip us of our humanity. But, in actuality, we quickly learn from these forms that we humans are “a transitional species. A blip on the timeline.” And we shouldn’t stand in the way of progress.

Running at about 100 minutes without intermission, The Antiquities, co-produced by Playwrights Horizons, Vineyard Theatre, and Goodman Theatre, is more intellectual than emotional, forging new ground to uncover while not exactly entering our emotional core. “Look alive,” these two museum guides tell us, framing the epic formula with a clever simulation of both living and looking. Creating monsters is what we do best, it seems, and despite our best human efforts, this recreation retrospect doesn’t give us a great deal to be hopeful for as we bear witness daily to the problems technology and A.I. have already brought into our culture and our world. There’s no in-between, we are told, as technology is as good or evil as its creator. This is a worrisome idea, looking around the state of the United States and the world at large. And it cuts a bit deep on a rainy Sunday when hope seems to be stumbling because of the (elected and non-elected) monsters that have taken control of it all.