Tag Archives: A.I.

May 28

The Algorithm is Smarter than the Heart but Not the Stomach: “My Home on the Moon”

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Photo by Ken Yotsukura Photography.

East Coast Premiere presented by Chuang Stage
By Minna Lee
Directed by cara hinh

May 23 – June 13, 2026
Boston Center for the Arts
Plaza Theatre

Article by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Gentrification murders culture in the name of progress. Gentrification isn’t the same as healthy renovation of and fiscal investment in an historically underserved neighborhood (say, Dorchester and Chelsea, MA). Rather, gentrification steals political and fiscal autonomy from longtime residents and bestows it upon rich people. If you can pay the rent, you can remove the people who’ve lived in and loved in an area for generations without a second thought for where The Poors will go once they’re kicked out. 

Chuang Stage’s My Home on the Moon by Minna Lee packages the horrors of gentrification-in-the-name-of-progress with a heaping dose of aptly uncanny A.I. It is a timely science fiction morality tale cum fever dream told through bowls of pho and other Vietnamese dishes. Mai (strong but grouchy Belle Le) wants to feed people well. She’s ready to serve pho to her community at Pho Lan, her boss Lan’s (Christina R Chan, perky and resilient) restaurant. Continue reading →

Mar 17

Can’t Sleep, The A.I. Will Eat Me: “The Antiquities”

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Foreground: Kelsey Fonise; background: Alison Russo; Photo by Benjamin Rose Photography.

Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company
By Jordan Harrison
Directed by Alex Lonati
Dramaturgy by Reyn Ricafort 
Featuring: Alison Russo, Kelsey Fonise, Helen Hy-Yuen Swanson, Catia, Jesse Hinson, Tobias Wilson, John Kuntz, Anderson Stinson III, Harry Baker

March 6 – 28, 2026
Boston Center for the Arts
Calderwood Pavilion
The Roberts Studio Theatre
527 Tremont St.
Boston, MA 02116

Content Warning: This production contains strong language, sexual content, mild violence including limb severing, and potentially distressing themes.

Article by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley published her most famous novel, Frankenstein, in 1818. Czech writer Karel Čapek published his revolutionary play, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), in 1921. Today, SpeakEasy Stage Company presents The Antiquities, a play about A.I.’s preservation of human existence at the Boston Center for the Arts. 

Playwright Čapek anticipated modern A.I. without predicting its foibles or dangers. R.U.R. tells of an inventor, Mr. Rossum, who builds artificial humans to enslave them. Helena, a sympathetic human and love interest, gives Radius, a rebellious robot, access to a human library so he may acquire knowledge. Instead of using knowledge to gain equality, Radius seeks to enslave humans in return. Like one recent study on modern A.I. at Cornell’s Kempner Institute, Rossum’s A.I. robots mutated past rote learning to develop their intelligence beyond their humans’ dictates. Over one hundred years of science fiction media later, including Blade Runner’s Voight-Kampff Test, Jordan Harrison gives us The Antiquities, a play that foretells an era without humans. (Apologies to Charlton Heston.) Continue reading →

Feb 04

The Horrors of Knocking: “No One at the Door”

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“No One at the Door” would be Odysseus’s catchphrase if he was a mailman.

Presented by Theatre of the Electric Mouth
written by Lyubomir Parushev
Directed by Molly Cohen
Sound by Zach Trebino
Video by Steve Barroga
Featuring Samantha Turret as Sam and Tom Vinson as Jack

Available on YouTube on Feb. 15, 2021
Theatre of the Electric Mouth on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

*Knock, knock*
Who’s there?
The Void.

YOUTUBE — “Where do you want to get dinner?” is a question that defines many modern relationships (like mine). In the case of Jack and Sam, domestic bliss is interrupted by a rapping, rapping at their chamber door. Sam asks Jack to answer the door. Jack can’t do anything right. Continue reading →