Summary
A futuristic play set in a museum dedicated to the late human race. Artificial beings curate exhibits that explore the history and eventual extinction of humanity.
Saturday, February 8, 2025 at 7:30 PM Feb 8, 2025, 7:30 PM
Feels pretty uncommon to see legit sci-fi with things to say about the human condition like this on stage. I thought it was thought-provoking but structurally speaking, er—patience is key, I guess.
The first ~half is the robots showing us flawed interpretations of human stories, and then the second ~half doubles back and fills in more human context that they missed. In practice, this frontloads the show with a lot of wooden scenes. The payoff is there as long as you keep the premise in mind and recognize that it’s an intentional choice, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t drag for me at points.
The Antiquities has a lot to say about how we infer things about the lives and times of other humans. I’ve given it a fair bit of thought over the last few days—I’m just not sure if I enjoyed the experience of actually being in the theater quite as much!