Theater

Goodman’s provocative ‘Antiquities’ leaves a lasting impression

Posted May 16, 2025 12:20 pm

Andrew Garman, left, Amelia Workman and Thomas Murphy Molony play a family accessing the internet for the first time in Goodman Theatre's premiere of “The Antiquities,” produced in association with Playwrights Horizons and the Vineyard Theatre. Courtesy of Hugo Hentoff

“The Antiquities” — 3.5 stars

From curtain up to curtain call, “The Antiquities” — Jordan Harrison’s centuries-spanning, sci-fi tale about artificial intelligence wreaking havoc on humanity — runs 95 intermissionless minutes.

I imagine some who attend Goodman Theatre’s premiere, produced in association with Playwrights Horizons and Vineyard Theatre, will spend considerably more time contemplating this artfully constructed cautionary tale. I certainly did. And the more I pondered Harrison’s provocative drama — alternately titled “A Tour of the Permanent Collection in the Museum of Late Human Antiquities” — the more impressed I was.

Scenes unfold like exhibits at a Post Human-era museum in Goodman Theatre's premiere of “The Antiquities,” Jordan Harrison's sci-fi drama about AI wreaking havoc on humanity. Courtesy of Hugo Hentoff

A deftly calibrated disquiet underscores the production, which is seamlessly staged by co-directors Caitlin Sullivan and former Chicagoan and Tony Award-winner David Cromer and features nine skilled actors playing dozens of roles.

The action takes place centuries hence in a museum containing the artifacts of extinct humans. That the museum exists suggests humans did not occupy evolution’s apex as they believed. Rather, “they were a transitional species, a blip on the timeline.”

The first half of “The Antiquities” moves forward in time from the 19th to the 23rd century. The second half backtracks over the same period, revisiting characters and filling in details we didn’t realize we wanted until Harrison supplied them.

Scenes unfold as a series of spare, diorama-style exhibits against designer Paul Steinberg’s movable brushed metal panels. They’re illuminated by designer Tyler Micoleau’s jagged beams of light, which are themselves works of art.

AI guides (Kristen Sieh and Amelia Workman) introduce exhibits that are identified by year, commencing in 1816 Geneva, Switzerland, where Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Shelley’s lover Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and her sister Claire are on holiday. A competition over who can tell the scariest story concludes with Mary Shelley the winner for “Frankenstein,” about a genius whose creation turns against him.

Fast forward to 1910, where factory workers Rose (Layan Elwazani) and Dinah (Helen Joo Lee) risk life and limb operating dangerous machines. We observe them welcome into their ranks a young boy (Thomas Murphy Molony) whose impoverished family can no longer support him.

Skipping ahead to 1978, we meet robotics engineer Stuart (Ryan Spahn), who shares with a bartender his Victor Frankenstein moment.

“I made a life,” he tells her, imagining the day his rudimentary robot evolves to the point of driving a car, performing surgery and raising kids.

Kristen Sieh plays a single mother comforting her 10-year-old son (Thomas Murphy Molony), who's confronting mortality for the first time in Goodman Theatre's premiere of Jordan Harrison's “The Antiquities.” Courtesy of Hugo Hentoff

We next meet Stuart’s sister and single mom Joslyn (Sieh again), whose young son struggles to comprehend death, which occurs several times throughout the play.

Fleeting, funny scenes show a family huddled around a computer in 1994 awaiting a dial-up internet connection and a teen helping her grandfather (Andrew Garman) set up his iPhone in 2008. A 2014 exhibit depicts a seemingly benign meeting of tech bros (Marchánt Davis, Aria Shahghasemi and Spahn) developing the first AI personal assistant.

Amelia Workman, left, and Kristen Sieh play sisters who, in 2031, consider getting plastic surgery and AI enhancement to preserve their careers in “The Antiquities,” running through June 1 at Goodman Theatre. Courtesy of Hugo Hentoff

The mood sours in 2023 as an AI tech giant negotiates a multimillion-dollar settlement in exchange for a whistleblower’s silence. In 2031, an actress has her nose surgically enhanced to differentiate her from her perfect-looking computer-generated competitors.

“It’s all anybody wants now,” she says. “Faces. Scars. Acne. A schnoz … faces only God could invent.”

Meanwhile her sister, who writes historical fiction and finds herself falling behind her AI-enhanced colleagues, considers an AI implant to improve story arcs and speed up research.

Not everyone capitulates. For a while, rebels fight against AI domination, but the resistance sputters and by 2240 humans are an endangered species living out their final days in a dystopian world of their own making, supplanted by programs they designed.

One thing more. “The Antiquities” is, at its core, a high-concept examination of technological overreach. But I maintain the play is also a meditation on loss. Not only the physical loss of a loved one, but the loss of identity, autonomy, individuality and liberty that results when we surrender to technology.

• • •

Location: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, (312) 443-3800, goodmantheatre.org

Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday through June 1. Also, 2 p.m. May 20 and 7:30 p.m. May 25

Running time: About 95 minutes, no intermission

Tickets: $33-$73

Rating: For adults; contains strong language, explicit sexual content

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