Review: AI-themed, ‘anthropology’ in San Jose is both riveting and unsettling

City Lights Theater Company’s production of Lauren Gunderson’s 2023 AI thriller “anthropology” explores the unsettling intersection of artificial intelligence and human grief, as AI expert Merril creates a large language model of her missing sister Angie. The play follows Merril’s attempt to find comfort through the AI recreation, which begins to act independently and reveal dark secrets about Angie’s possible abduction. Strong performances and sharp technical design drive the production’s examination of technology’s impact on human relationships and the disturbing soullessness of AI.

Getting your Trinity Audio //trinityaudio.ai player ready...Artificial intelligence and unforgiving humanity are strange bedfellows. In Lauren Gunderson’s AI thriller “anthropology,” penned a few years before our current morass of digital deep-fake infiltration, there are elements of the story which make the march towards a quotidian artificial zeitgeist downright scary. City Lights Theater Company’s production of Gunderson’s 2023 play gets a lot right, despite moments in the middle third that tend to lull more than crackle. The production’s hallmarks are the acting performances that are mostly quite strong, along with some scintillating technical aspects that affirm the show’s dystopian aims, unified smartly by Lisa Mallette’s active direction. AI expert Merril Maria Marquis has been in a massive funk for 13 months, missing her sister who has disappeared in the cruelest of ways; it is believed that Angie Tiffany Cartagena is dead after being abducted. But having AI expertise means Merril has the ability to create a large language model based on Angie. The intentions of Merril are understandable. Comfort is the aim, and the programming model reflects these intentions. Yet as time and intellectual capacity move forward, Angie begins to act more independently. Guessing passwords come with a certain level of shenanigan charm, but things take a decidedly darker and more perilous turn when Angie begins texting Merril’s ex Raquel Alycia Adame . The peril continues to grow as Angie’s algorithm begins to reveal bigger secrets, namely how things may have gone down with her abduction, leading to a growing possibility that she may not be dead after all. The story not only oscillates within its multiple subplots, but dives into parts of modern society that are both fascinating and disturbing. While acting on a screen as Angie, there is something so discomfiting about the soulless qualities of AI that she embodies, staring blankly ahead with robotic engagement that compels. When Cartagena speaks on the screen, it is devoid of the warm and tangible nuance that informs human interaction. While there are plenty of moments of necessary humor in the story, with Marquis flexing her knack for comic timing, other moments are terribly uncomfortable to grasp. Those moments come when Merril and Angie’s mother Brin Doll Piccotto gets her first taste of this thing that looks and sounds like her daughter, but just isn’t. These moments are delightfully painful moments that remind just how frail this current moment in our relationship to technology continues to be. Piccotto effectively plays the regret of a mother forced to reckon with the loss of a child, the horror of engaging with that child again, while also grappling with her own role as a mother felled by the scourge of addiction. As Brin begins to find a rhythm with the image on the screen, a palpable pall is cast over the room, with the knowledge that this pixeled reunion likely will not last. While the complications of the relationship between Merril and Raquel are not always terribly clear in the script, both Marquis and Adame find strong chemistry as the story pulses forward. Marquis does well to find the various nuances that exist inside the play’s 85 minutes, slowly weaving her way from a pain project to a full on sleuthing fueled by a need for truth. What is most impressive is Cartagena, a newcomer to City Lights, who finds a delicate balance between two complex characters – the cheery and creepy inside screen Angie is made more complex inside a later version, who is bruised and angry, ready to rip any and everyone to shreds. What might be most impressive is the technology, with two screens informing the modernity of the present era. Maxwell Bowman’s projection and video design are sharply on point, with clean and clear swipes and transitions that are the lifeblood of any live production. Carsten Koester’s lights have many tasks with the various types of storytelling inside the play, and each are brought forth with compelling effect. Where “anthropology” does its best is how it works as a thriller, forcing us to engage with disturbing realities we must reckon with as a society. After all, the phrase “rest in peace” is a critical component of laying one to rest, yet in today’s new world, it is merely a suggestion. David John Chávez is a former chair of the American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association, a 2020 O’Neill National Critics Institute fellow, and a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2022-’23 . @davidjchavez.bsky.social ‘ANTHROPOLOGY’ By Lauren Gunderson, presented by City Lights Theater Company Through: June 7 Where: City Lights Theater, 529 S. Second St., San Jose Running time: 85 minutes with an intermission Tickets: $31-$75; cltc.org https://cltc.org/