Serious Theater, Perfectly Executed

Posted on 05/20/2026 by paulefallon

Oedipus el Rey

Written by Luis Alfaro
Directed by Loretta Greco

The Huntington

Roberts Studio Theatre

May 14 – June 14, 2026

Victor Almanzar, Javier David, Juan Arturo,Gabe Martínez in Oedipus El Rey; directed by Loretta Greco; photo by Marc J. Franklin

The power of our foundational stories; the myths, fables, and legends shared across time and culture; is rooted in how facilely they can be adapted to illustrate unique places and times while preserving their universal message. Thus, when Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is reimagined by playwright Luis Alfaro as Oedipus el Rey, a Los Angeles barrio kingpin, we are enmeshed in that specific ghetto. And yet, we recognize the parallels between these characters’ tragedy and our own particular struggles. We are offered an opportunity for understanding. For empathy.

This production is flawless. The gunmetal backdrop with its riveting graphics. The sometimes moody, oftentimes glaring lighting. The abrasive orange shirts of the Greek Chorus of California inmates. The prison banter, fast and sharp as bullets, that turns into street hustle when we return to the hood. The play in unexpectedly funny, with careful tone shifts from joy to pathos. How director Loretta Greco transforms the bleak space into a joyful wedding scene, then incorporates the audience into the action, and then deposits us back into chaos, is the most well-integrated piece of audience involvement I’ve ever experienced. We ride the crest together, which makes the subsequent tragedy all the more devastating.

Juan Arturo’s Oedipus is young and brash beyond sense, which is probably the most valuable skill required in a world where swagger counts above all. Yet the character that I kept thinking about, days after the performance, was Melisa Soledad Pereyra’s Jocasta. Ms. Pereyra is petite, so much smaller than the men that suffocate her, and her performance is so quiet. Jocasta is unhappily married to Laius, yet mired in mourning when he dies. She’s resistant to Oedipus’ advances, yet yields to his insistence. She has supposedly managed to rule in her husband’s absence, yet is so meek, so submissive once Oedipus pushes himself in. In the wedding scene, she’s uncannily reminiscent of another universally tragic figure: Maria in West Side Story. I was puzzled by this demure performance, until I realized how well it reflected the barrio world in which Jocasta lives. Where women have to be strong always, yet appear meek to the strutting bravado all around them.

Juan Arturo, Melisa Pereyra in Oedipus El Rey; directed by Loretta Greco; photo by Marc J. Franklin

Playwright Alfaro makes a few telling changes from Sophocles’ tale, none of which I will reveal, but each of which dissuade the audience from casually thinking, I know what happens next. Each lateral move, I thought, enhanced the power of the tragedy. I was in rapt attention the entire play.

If you’re up for something light and fun, go see the Lyric’s Something Rotten and exit laughing. But if you want be challenged, go see Oedipus el Rey, and exit in awe of The Huntington’s riveting exposition of the human condition.

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Spending Down Retirement

Posted on 05/13/2026 by paulefallon

Two weeks ago, I cracked open a spigot I’ve been avoiding for some time. Might as well turn the faucet on full flow.

Image courtesy Amazon Prime

Turns out, I have a lot of money. Not billionaire money. Not crazy amounts that would take decades to disburse. But plenty enough to do whatever I want. Actually, much more than required to do whatever I want. After all, one of my favorite mantras is, “It doesn’t take much money to be Paul Fallon.”

I don’t know how I managed to absorb a lifetime of messages of economic prudence while repelling the usual corollaries of indulgence upon maturity. Now that I’m old and rich, I can have all sorts of luxuries. Except they hold no appeal.

I have some family and friends who did not adequately save for old age. They’re frustrated by their economic constraints. Fortunately, the safety net for old folks is more robust than for the rest of the populace, so they have basic food and shelter and health care. They can do pretty much everything I want to do, though they yearn to do more.

More common among my mostly well-educated, mostly affluent friends, is that they’ve saved enough to savor creature comforts. Which they do with relish. They enjoy the most recently fashionable restaurants. They have concierge medicine. They travel, often first class. They quip how they can’t take it with them as if it’s a moral imperative to spend all their money before they die.

This is a perspective I do not understand.

Money is a peculiar resource because, unlike coal or water or sunshine, it’s created by humans. It’s not finite; at least not since we slipped off the gold standard. It’s easily renewable, as we consistently make more of it, just because. It’s also peculiar in that, unlike gas or electric, it’s pre-assigned. We possess the resource (whether outright or through debt) before we use it. And yet I still consider money to be a resource because it is something we can choose to steward, or exploit.

In theory, money is just a medium of exchange, useless in its own right. In fact, in America, it’s the ultimate measure of who anyone is. Unless, like me, you choose to steward money as you would any precious resource. To live below your means. To consider money a security blanket against the vagaries of an uncertain world. A blanket that I hope to flutter among the quick when I’m six feet under and no longer in need of any warmth save that of mother earth.

I don’t feel any compunction to spend whatever digits appear on my bank statement. Not today, not tomorrow, not any time before I die. When I move on, I’m quite content to have them transferred to others, preferably in a way that benefits them and aligns with my personal values. Some consider it a waste of luxury unspent. I call it my legacy.

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Something Rotten is Soooo Good

Posted on 05/05/2026 by paulefallon

Something Rotten

Music & Lyrics by Wayne Kirkpatrick & Karey Kirkpatrick

Book by Karey Kirkpatrick & John O’Farrell

Directed by Ilana Ransom Toeplitz

Lyric Stage Boston

May 1 – June 7, 2026

Welcome to the Renaissance. Cast of Something Rotten. All photos by Nile Hawler

It only takes a moment to realize Something Rotten is delicious. The sweetness, without the sorrow, titillates your senses for the next two-and-a-half hours. It’s an unrelenting good time for anyone, but if you picked up the lyrical references in the first two lines of this post (Hello, Dolly! and A Chorus Line) than Something Rotten is a special treat for you!

I must admit to knowing nothing about Something Rotten when I entered Lyric Stage’s intimate theater, beyond the certainty that the Lyric always creates musical magic in their final show every season. Turns out, Something Rotten ran for almost two years on Broadway, garnered ten Tony nominations in 2015, but lost highest honors to Fun Home. I’ll grant that Fun Home has more heft, but actually, that tale of a lesbian coming of age in a funeral home is not nearly as much fun.

Here’s the plot, though it hardly matters. Welcome to the Renaissance: England 1595. Will Shakespeare is all the rage, while playwright wannabe Nick Bottom and his younger brother Nigel, suffer by comparison. Truth is, Nigel’s a beautiful, empathic writer. Shakespeare knows it (and often steals his stuff) while big brother Nick refuses to develop the small human tragedies Nigel pens. He wants big! So, he spends his last savings on a soothsayer, Nostradamus, who tells him that Shakespeare’s greatest play will feature a Danish and an omelet (close, but not quite a Dane named Hamlet). More importantly, Nostradamus foresees that the big profits in the theater business will all flow to something called a musical. Thus, Nick puts all his energy into producing the world’s most over-the-top breakfast song and dance. There’s also a clever wife, a limp-wristed Puritan with a sensuous daughter, Portia, and a gentle Jew named Shylock. It’s hard to differentiate the real Shakespeare references from the fake ones. But that’s all part of the fun.

What does matter in Something Rotten is that you have a good time, which Lyric’s superb production delivers every moment. The cast is terrific A to Zed. Kristian Espiritu as Nick’s wife, Bea, and Lauren Dodds as catchy Portia have lovely singing voices. Jared Troilo’s Shakespeare is so oily he’s fun to hate, Joy Clark’s Nostradamus is comedic perfection, while the triple threat Ryan Mardesich as Nick Bottom glues the entire production together and jockeys its galloping pace. There is so much stage business, so deftly executed, you hardly know where to rest your eyes. The songs are Broadway catchy and dense with clever lyrics. The big number halfway through Act One, in which Nostradamus introduces the concept of “A Musical” contains so many fleeting references to White Way classic tunes, along with corresponding lyric allusions, you give up trying to track them. With so much energy spent so early, I wondered how the show could maintain it’s momentum. Not to worry: it does.

Kickline from the number: A Musical. Cast of Something Rotten

History in books is dry. Serious documentary sacrifices passion for accuracy. School House Rock played history loose, but kept our elementary attention. The only thing rotten about Something Rotten is the history it tells because, like any recalcitrant child, it refuses to stay in its place and time. It’s a crazy mashup of 1595 and 2015, and any number of arbitrary years in between. A mash-up is a theatrically tricky. How to balance place and time and tone. Where to lean into the parallels between then and now, and when to just let them loose in the off-chance the audience will notice. The mash-up spirit in both the play, and Lyric’s production, is brilliant. The sensibility of farce to feminism, of silliness to eloquence, of witty to wistful, weaves through every line, every lyric, every character, every bit of choreographed perfection. It comes at you so fast, so funny.

So go see Something Rotten. You’ll have a great time. And if you don’t catch it all on the first round. Go again.

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Get Swept Away

Posted on 04/29/2026 by paulefallon

Swept Away

Book by John Logan

Music and Lyrics by The Avett Brothers

Directed by Jeremy Johnson

Speakeasy Stage

April 24 – May 23, 2026

Carson Hollingsworth and cast of Swept Away. Photo by Scott Niles Studio.

Well before opera demanded that larger than life figures sing continuously to exorcise their emotions, before Broadway portrayed how ordinary folk could not help but break into song, people sang. Oppressed people. Working people. Slaves and millworkers and sailors. Gospels and anthems and shanties. Long and loud, in wondrous harmony. Unlike stage performers, they did not sing because their emotions frenzied beyond words. They sang because the conditions of their lives were so horrific, singing provided refuge from their drudgery and pain.

These musings occupied my head throughout Speakeasy Stage’s perfect production of Swept Away. Swept Away is inspired by the story of the Mignonette, a British ship that sank in route to Australia in 1884, resulting in four crew being stranded on a lifeboat, from which only three survived. The play recasts those events to a New Bedford sailing ship in the waning days of whaling, a setting that better suits The Avett Brothers’ catchy tunes. That these sailors sing, as a way to loiter doldrum time, or ease the burden of their work, or to redirect their fear, makes solid sense.

Speakeasy’s production is captivating from start to finish. The set is simple yet effective, with tall masts punctuating the deck of ship at sea, or toppled upon the wreck. A sheer net, sometimes sail, sometimes porous border between the quick and dead, allows spirits lost to the depths to haunt those still alive. The four principal actors: Peter DiMaggio as Mate; Christopher Chew as Captain; Max Connor as Little Brother; Bishop Levesque as Big Brother are all excellent, with strong singing voices. The ensemble crew of six hearty souls plus the remarkable Ezra Quinlan climbing the rigging with aerial grace, provide the foundational heft the score and story deserve. When the entire ensemble sings, the sound is glorious. When they tackle Ilyse Robbins tricky choreography, the visual delight is splendid.

Swept Away’s main shortcoming is the play’s puzzling plot points. If Little Brother runs away to seek adventure, why he is so fixated on the girl he’s left behind (aside from giving Max Connor opportunity to sing fine ballads)? And if Big Brother is so responsible as to run Little Brother down, there’s no credence to his becoming an unintentional stowaway. Worst of all plot inconsistencies is the retribution that Mate feels from what transpires in the lifeboat. Peter DiMaggio is incredible at portraying this conniving, morally bankrupt character. No way do I believe he suffers years of remorse for what he does to stay alive. Still, where the plot needs to serve up maximum trauma, it delivers. No spoiler alert here, but the climax of the plot is simultaneously unexpected yet completely satisfying.

These minor chinks in Swept Away are baked into the play, whereas Speakeasy’s production is truly flawless. Every foot stomp, every aerial maneuver, every spoken line, and vocalized longing is beautifully executed. Director Johnson organizes the ship’s deck or the dinghy’s cramped hull as a tableau; visually unifying, yet ultimately terrifying. Go see this gorgeous show. Listen to the crew’s glorious song, and hear the ache of human tragedy within.

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What We Lose When We Go First Class

Posted on 04/23/2026 by paulefallon

The next time you’re in the mood to knock around Paris and have an idle $16,000 burning a hole in your pocket, may I suggest flying “La Premiere” on Air France. When you’ve tired of the diversions offered by The City of Light, a personal Mercedes will pick you up at your hotel, whisk you through private customs at De Gaulle airport, drive you along the tarmac in a Porsche Cayenne, elevate you onto the plane via a unique entrance, ensconce you in a curtained off space with both lounge chair and full-size bed, and ply you with gastronomic delights at every turn. You’ll even get a personal visit from the captain, if you’re inclined to meet someone whose undoubtedly both handsome and deferential.

La Premiere space. Image courtesy of The New York Times

What you not meet, at any step in your journey, is anyone whose existence spills beyond attending to you.

A common theme of this blog is that: what we buy with affluence, is privacy. And every so often, when I come upon an extreme example of how this plays out in the real world, I revisit the idea. Why do humans (purportedly social creatures) go to such great lengths to keep away from each other? The recent NY Times article on flying first class Paris to New York is just that kind of absurdity.

On the surface, the article’s a bit of fluff, a glimpse into a world the vast majority of us will never achieve and yet, for some reason, we’re supposed to aspire to. I really can’t imagine what it’s like to have every single interaction be with a subservient, but the idea gives me the willies. When everyone bows to you, you never question anything about yourself or your role in this world. In fact, each supplicant further inflates your own self-importance and inhibits any chance for critical reflection or personal growth.

How did we arrive at this value system that prizes being coddled and comforted rather than being challenged? So many factors, laid upon each other. Our affluence, for sure. “La Premiere” could not exist without a regular group who hop the Pond without giving sixteen grand a second thought. Madison Avenue, for drilling the idea of comfort and convenience into our brains. Our political narrative that demonizes “the other” (i.e. economy class) as something dangerous, to be avoided AT ALL COST! Overlay our economic myths that equate more money with being a better person. Wealth may be a fact. But it is not a virtue.

The funny thing is, I could fly “La Premiere” to Paris. I have the money. Blowing 16K on such frivolity wouldn’t seriously dent my retirement savings. But I’ll never do it. For the same reason I don’t fly first class anywhere. For the same reason I have an Advantage Plan over a premium Medicare policy. For the same reason I take the T instead of an Uber. Because even though I can afford to set myself beyond what an ordinary person can afford, I choose not to do it. Because living prudently is living more sustainably. Because I strive to be aligned with my fellow man. Because my well-being does not come from being separate from others. It comes from being engaged with them.

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Guinea Pig Blues

Posted on 04/15/2026 by paulefallon
MGH Martinos Center, Photos courtesy http://www.martinos.org

For the past ten years I’ve been a guinea pig, offering myself up to be studied at the altar of medical science. I’ve been in studies at MGH and BWH, at BU and Brandies, at Harvard and Tufts. I’ve been in one-time studies, longitudinal studies, dietary studies, sleep studies, blood studies, and COVID studies. But mostly I’ve been in aging/memory/dementia studies. The primary research focus of my demographic. I’ve played so many cognitive games and had so many PET-CT’s, EEG’s, and MRI’s, my brain is well-worn terrain.

I do it for science. At least that’s what I tell everyone. But there are other satisfactions. The small stipends and free cafeteria coupons. The comfort that if all this imaging reveals something troubling, I’ll be aware. But the biggest satisfaction has always been the comfort I feel upon releasing myself, in trust, to a system that works.

Medical research is exacting, and every one of the studies I’ve been a part of has been carefully designed and meticulously executed. Spending a day at MGH’s mammoth research building in Charlestown is not unlike entering an elite spa. The research coordinator greets me at the door and personally escorts me through whatever litany of consents, blood draws, physical exams, tests and procedures is on my docket. Every setting is in place upon my arrival. Everyone is universally pleasant and so appreciative. It makes me feel special.

Martinos Center Interior Atrium

Until recently. Last month I participated in two studies that were, frankly, slip-shod.

The first included brain studies that required an EEG and cognitive tests on site, followed by two overnights wearing a sleep profiler to monitor brain activity. All tasks I’d done before, in various contexts. That night I went through the routine of swabbing my forehead and chin and arms, attaching the electrodes, running the wires through my sleep shirt, connecting it all to the profiler headset, and settling into bed. When I pressed the button to start recording I received a new message: “There is insufficient battery to monitor the night’s rest.” Angry, I got up and ripped off all the wires. The next day I sent a terse email to the study coordinator that they had sent me home with out-of-juice batteries. She subsequently mailed me the battery charger, and a few days later I was able to successfully measure my sleep.


The next week I spent another day at MGH Charlestown, this time for different tests and an MRI. A portion of the 90-minute MRI included being connected to a breathing apparatus that delivered a custom proportion of O2/CO2. However, they aborted that part of the study shortly after it began, and later told me that the CO2 canister was empty and no one on the study team could find a replacement. Would I be willing to return another day to do that portion?

A quick financial analysis ran through my head. I was being paid $200 for a six-hour stint as a research specimen, while MGH was burning through thousands of dollars to employ four people to attend to me, one of whom was an MD, plus the cost of two hours of MR time. Much of this investment was now wasted because no one remembered to check the CO2 level in a canister.

As a result, they offered me an additional $25 for a few more hours’ time, while they would spend hundreds more to reschedule the MRI.

From a financial perspective, it makes no sense for me to return because of the study team’s carelessness. At the same time, I don’t do this for the money, and without the full study, their results will be compromised. I still haven’t decided whether to return and let them complete the session. Not because of the money, so much as the disappointment I feel. That the little bubble of perfection I’ve always felt in doing medical research, has been burst.

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Rent Control Redux

Posted on 04/08/2026 by paulefallon

Regular as Daylight Savings Time, the forces advocating for more affordable housing raise the eternal promise of rent control to address our housing ills. Four years ago, in response to a series of hearings held by the Massachusetts Legislature, I published a four-part essay about the history, promise, and peril of rent control. This year, a ‘new’ rent control proposal is climbing Beacon Hill, as a November ballot question. Recently Mayor Michelle Wu (universally appreciated and loved) provided some support for the endeavor. That makes it a real possibility. So, once again, I will try to dispel the fantasy that rent control will lower housing costs or lead to more housing development.

Rent control does one thing very well. It protects people already living in rental housing. Their rents stabilize. They enjoy relative savings. They tend not to move. They may suffer the downside that, over time, rent controlled housing, being less profitable to the owner, endures deferred maintenance, but most renters will accept that tradeoff (to a point) for lower rent.

The downsides of that stabilization are significant. People who don’t already live in a rental unit will have a harder time finding one. Less new housing will get built because it’s less profitable. The housing market will lock up.

Rent control can be a bonus for local politicians. Long-term renters—beneficiaries of the policy—will be more inclined to vote to maintain their perk. Those frozen out of the market, lacking a local address and therefore also lacking a local vote, find their voices literally unheard. The last time we had rent control in Massachusetts, in the 1990’s, it had dwindled down to three cities: Boston; Brookline; Cambridge. At the time 70% of Cambridge residents were renters, the vast majority of them in rent-controlled units. That fact shaped the politics of the city until the State ballot question pulled rent control out from local control.

What has happened to Cambridge since is an illustration of what happens when we go from strict rent control to nothing at all. The city, which had deteriorating housing stock for decades, is now so spruced up—and so expensive—it’s flipped from an enclave where long-term renters run the show to one where only the rich can enter.

Where’s the middle ground? The free market is not going to provide enough housing for all, especially given all the obstacles that Massachusetts cities and towns throw in front of new development. But rent control is no panacea, since we know from experience how it stymies development.

The path toward adequate housing for all will require give and take on everyone’s part. It will require more public investment in low- and moderate-income housing. It will require reduced zoning restrictions. It will require simpler development processes. But it will also require changes in our expectations of what constitutes appropriate housing. In a country where 25% of households have a single person. where the amount of square feet per person continues to grow, and there’s a public health crisis of isolation and loneliness, we need to invest alternate forms of congregate housing. To provide adequate housing for all, we have to move beyond the extravagant expectations portrayed nightly on HGTV.

Rent control sounds like a great way get as grip on our housing woes. It’s a simple, sweeping move that requires no public money. But history has shown that rent control does not create more housing, or more housing equity.

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April Fool!

Posted on 04/01/2026 by paulefallon

In honor of being foolish, I offer my new favorite New Yorker cartoon, published in the March 23, 2026 issue.

Is this really the “Great America” the MAGAtes want us to return to?

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Lifted

Posted on 03/23/2026 by paulefallon

Lifted

By Mfoniso Udofia

Directed by Josiah Davis

Play #7 in the Ufot Family Cycle

March 24-28: In-process Presentations at Maso Studio at Huntington Theater

March 29: Alumnae Hall Auditorium, Wellesley College

Mfoniso Udofia. Photo courtesy Wellesley Rep website.

Back in September, when I attended Ufot Family Cycle play #6, The Ceremony, I enjoyed a brief conversation with playwright Mfoniso Udofia, during which she told me plays #8 and 9 were in good shape, but #7 was still very much in progress. I don’t know how that factors into the unique way this play is being unveiled, but the process—and results—of creating Lifted is an exciting one.

Earlier this month, the cast held three staged readings at The Footlight Club in Jamaica Plain. This week, there will be a series of presentations at Maso Studio at The Huntington. Then, on Sunday evening March 29, there will be a single performance of the play at Wellesley College. And at this moment, that’s all there is, folks!

I had the great good fortune to attend the first Footlight Club presentation, where I fell under the spell of this captivating play. Given that it was a staged reading, the playwright and director offered some opening comments. The six-person cast had been rehearsing about three weeks, though they received new script pages—up to 60—every day. The play will ultimately include three acts, though only the first two were being presented that night. The cast had scripts on hand, but they also moved, creating dependence at arm’s length.

Arm’s length is a key aspect of this play in which three actors portray the same character simultaneously, physically tethered by a kind of gelatinous thread. Dr. Toyoima Ufot (Innocent), Dr. Toyoima Ufot (Front-Facing) and Dr. Toyoima Ufot (Wrath) are different aspects of the same person. The conceit works brilliantly as a medium to illustrate coincident internal conflicts, the kind that rage within us all. It’s particularly effective because the play’s plot revolves around whether Harvard professor Dr. Ufot plagiarized research done by her now-dead father. Parallels to the plight of Claudine Gay abound, cossetted in so much academic jargon that, if delivered by one actor would be a marble-mouth of mush, but when distributed among three aspects of the same person, becomes wonderful banter.

Even in progress, two aspects of Lifted elevate it beyond other plays in the cycle. First, it’s funny. Very funny. Second, it’s got song. Beautiful song, exquisitely delivered. Perhaps this is the luxury of second-generation immigrants, that they can afford to laugh and to sing. Though I think it reflects a particular kinship of this play to its author. Lifted is complex yet so loving.

And yet, like every play in this immigrant cycle, the bittersweet emotion of the torn heart permeates the whole. Abasiama, the Ufot matriarch, encapsulates this in her haunting line, “One should not reside in a place that shatters one’s soul.” Toyoima encounters so much obstruction in her path towards integrity; America shatters her soul. Yet wasn’t it shattered souls, or shattered bellies, or shattered bodies, that drove the Ufot’s out of Nigeria in the first place? Where in this world can these wandering souls be fulfilled?

The play shifts quite a bit in time, though I did not find it confusing. However, there was one place where the flow stumbled. Mid-way through Act Two time shifts way back, to the 1990’s, when Toyoima is a singular personality, aged four, then seven, then twelve, sixteen, twenty-two. The backstory is important, but at the script iteration I attended, this sequence was too long, too diffuse for what needs to be conveyed. Hopefully, Ms. Udofia will tighten this as the play evolves. Especially as a third act is planned, and the performance I attended was already long.

In acts one and two, the title Lifted refers to taking others’ words as your own. But I yearn for lifted’s higher meaning, and am confident that Ms. Udofia will deliver that in act three, when, according to the talk-back discussion. Toyoima will journey back to Nigeria and find meaning and purpose denied her in the United States. I’m excited to see how that comes to be.

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The Antiquities at Speakeasy Stage

Posted on 03/18/2026 by paulefallon

The Antiquities

By Jordan Harrison

Directed by Alex Lonati

Speakeasy Stage

March 6-28, 2026

We’ve all seen some variation of an image of human’s evolutionary stages. Some small creature in the lower left, often a chimp, sometimes even a salamander emerging from the sea (for evolutionists who wish to portray a broader time scale). The creature grows in stature and confidence as he stands ever upright towards the right. Culminating with…us. The image never leaves space for what might come after. Yet surely we are not the pinnacle of evolution. We will continue to evolve in ways impossible for us to foretell. Even so, playwright Jordan Harrison takes us on a rollicking good time travel in his thought-provoking play, The Antiquities.

Sometime in the 25th century, we’re invited to visit a museum of human history. The basic premise is a familiar sci-fi trope: humans have disappeared from the earth, replaced by intelligent entities unburdened by physical bodies. Mr. Harrison asks the deserving question, “What will they think of us?” and postulates a museum that features dioramas of humans in action as they begin to intuit what might come next. It’s a quaint concept: a museum, dioramas, actors in period costume, yet reminiscent of so many sci-fi worlds that harken to our own past (consider Blade Runner’s retro city).

A pair of robotic creatures welcome us to the museum and take us on a tour that begins in 1816, (when, on a summer’s lark, Mary Wollstonecraft first conceived of a creature created by man, who became Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein.) The play proceeds chronologically in short vignettes that include farmhands, single moms, AIDS victims, computer programmers, and AI experts, blowing past 2026 to portray directed brains, renegade humans corralled on reservations, and eventually a planet of pure intellect. The play is episodic, and like many museum experiences, leaves the visitor scratching their head about what happens in the years—often decades—between one scene and the next.

Speakeasy’s set is a series of panels, prosceniums really, nested as they retreat upstage. They’re quite elegant, but I couldn’t fathom their purpose beyond defining loci of action on the broad stage. More effective are the square pools of light that establish the center of each diorama. Once we’ve chronicled our way to the 25th century, the smallest proscenium closes to become a display case of human artifacts. A clever voice over describes their archeological importance. So far the play’s okay, though the observations about our past, or where we might go in the future, lay comfortably within familiar contemporary projections.

Alison Russo and cast of The Antiquities. Photo by Benjamin Rose Photography.

Then the lights reveal an entirely new set of artifacts, none of which has been featured in the earlier scenes. The voiceover concludes, the proscenium reopens, and the dioramas continue. Presented in reverse chronology. There is a pleasure in returning to each diorama; as if the characters are old friends. But also a deeper satisfaction. Because we know the future Mr. Harrison has scripted for us, revisiting ourselves over 500 years allows us to puzzle-fit each vignette, grasp which decision, at what time, contribute to where we end. And what was just human noise. The deconstruction in The Antiquities is totally engaging theater. The point of it, ultimately, is not whether this particular future vision is accurate. Rather, the message is: we do not know how decisions we make today will shape our tomorrow. We are not supposed to know. But shape them they will. So act in care, with consciousness.

As time unfolds, from future to past, one can’t help but make connections with the actors inhabiting their dioramas and the real-world events incessantly clamoring down upon us. It’s a worthwhile evening of theater, that you will ponder long after.

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