“The Antiquities”: Trying to find out just what humans were like

Once upon a time, dinosaurs were the dominant species on earth. Then came a natural disaster that wiped them out, and it was the turn of the mammals, culminating in the rise of human beings. But what would cause humanity to die out, and what would replace them? That’s the background for The Antiquities, a new play by Jordan Harrison, making its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons’ Judy Theatre on West 42nd Street in New York City.

The play, whose full title is A Tour of the Permanent Collection in the Museum of Late Human Antiquities or, just The Antiquities, is presented as though we in the audience were members of the species that replaced humans: creatures of artificial intelligence, such as robots and androids. We are taking a tour, guided by two AI beings, through a museum devoted to explaining how humans used various technological advances to rise to their peak, then fall into oblivion, as shown in a series of historial tableaus.

We start with Mary Shelley’s invention of the first science-fictional artificial lifeform, the Frankenstein monster. We proceed through the development of computers of various levels of sophistication and widening use among the human population, to the day when beings of artificial intelligence have the upper hand, reducing humans to small colonies performing the most rustic of subsistence level tasks. At the central point of the play, we find ourselves in a room where human-era antiquities are preserved under plexiglass cubes. The latter part of the play takes us back in time, showing us, as it were, the “second half” of the scenes we have seen earlier, until we’re back in Mary Shelley’s time and our guides bid us farewell.

Directors David Cromer and Caitlin Sullivan put their nine-member cast through their paces. The actors are not identified with the characters they play, leaving the audience to focus on their talent in embodying a wide range of personae throughout the show. To give them proper recognition, the members of the company are:  Cindy Cheung; Marchánt Davis; Layan Elwazani; Andrew Garman; Julius Rinzel; Aria Shahghasemi; Kristen Sieh; Ryan Spahn; and Amelia Workman.

The set, designed by Paul Steinberg, is stark, with large panels gliding at angles to each other to create a variety of indoor and outdoor, urban and rural spaces. They combine with the lighting design of Tyler Micoleau and the sound design of Christopher Darbassie to create scenes ranging from a thunderous Swiss night in 1816 to a suburban home in 1994 with its first home computer and modem, to a desert-like farming compound in 2240.

The Antiquities touches on many aspects of organic vs. inorganic life forms. Chief among these is the humans’ knowledge of the impermanence of life, coping with it by living in defiance of inevitable death and coming to terms with dying when it happens — something which inorganic life forms, inhabiting a logical binary world, cannot understand.

By showing how the inorganics try to construct an understanding of extinct human life through a study of what was left behind, playwright Harrison casts a light on our exuberant, messy, unpredictable existence, filled as it is with unintended consequences and webs of shared emotions. I cannot more strongly urge you to see this life-affirming play about human complexity as seen through the eyes of non-human life forms as they study The Antiquities.

The Antiquities is presented by Playwrights Horizons, in conjunction with New York’s Vineyard Theatre and Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, at its Judy Theatre, 416 West 42nd St. through Mar. 2, 2025. For more information or to purchase tickets, go to playwrightshorizons.org.