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A review by colin_cox
The Antipodes by Annie Baker
5.0
There is a question Annie Baker seems to circle in The Antipodes, and it may sound something like this: What is the point of the stories we tell? The answers to this question vary, but each answer shares a commonality: the stories we tell are failures. This is not an aesthetic judgment but a philosophical one. The stories we tell signify a failure to communicate. Adam, one of the youngest and newest members of this group of storytellers, articulates the frustrations of this failure by suggesting a solution that sounds not unlike the sort of Frankenstein's Monster that Silicon Valley might concoct. He says:
You know what I think would be cool?
If we could—I mean science must be able to—there’s got to be a way to just like attach electrodes to people’s brains and stimulate the parts of the brain that respond to story and like specific story elements.
So you could make people feel all the things they would feel during a romance or an adventure or a happy ending and there would still be an art to it because you’d be figuring out which synapses to stimulate when and for exactly how long.
But the whole thing where we have to make up some fictional world or some fictional series of events or narrative concepts would be over.
And if you wanted to do something new it would just be coming up with a new um algorithm. A new sequence.
Which is really what it is anyway.
We all pretend there’s something magic about it but actually it’s just algorithms. (78)
Here Adam castigates the group for thinking that what they do is unique, yet Baker’s word choice is suggestive of both the tone she attempts to strike and point she attempts to make, at times, throughout The Antipodes. The Antipodes is a topical play, and the satirical allusion to a tech-narrative, one that uses algorithmic solutions to successfully deliver the ultimate narrative experience, gestures toward the limits of data and algorithms as the method of correcting the messiness of humanity. Furthermore, notice how simple Adam’s solution sounds. Let us dispense with world-building, and in its place deliver the feelings and responses that narrative trajectory, causality, and thoughtful character development offer. It sounds elegant in its simplicity, right? This, of course, is Baker’s point. It all sounds too simple. It all sounds too elegant to be true. What Adam describes is the commodification of a story and not a story itself. If stories were this simple, would anyone enjoy them? Is it possible that part of what makes stories interesting is the messiness, the miscommunication, and the mistakes, and is it possible that The Antipodes attempts to dramatize those essential elements to narrative and storytelling?
But Baker is not cynical in her critique. Later in the play, Adam is the only member of this group who produces a story that transcends both the limits of language and the fallibility of humanity. He does this not by calculating a precise mathematical equation but by talking and developing a story spontaneously, or as he suggests “just bullshitting” (101). Regrettably, it’s not perfect; it’s not without some messiness. Eleanor, another newly-added member to the group, interrupts him when she realizes that no one transcribed Adam’s story. Within the universe of the play, Adam’s story is lost. The best story is the one that no one can reproduce or commodify, nor can a group of coders develop an algorithm that stimulates “the parts of the brain that respond to story and like specific story elements.” Furthermore, Adam’s story is without an ending because it was interrupted. In its incomplete messiness, it embodies a central theme of Annie Baker’s stunning new play.
You know what I think would be cool?
If we could—I mean science must be able to—there’s got to be a way to just like attach electrodes to people’s brains and stimulate the parts of the brain that respond to story and like specific story elements.
So you could make people feel all the things they would feel during a romance or an adventure or a happy ending and there would still be an art to it because you’d be figuring out which synapses to stimulate when and for exactly how long.
But the whole thing where we have to make up some fictional world or some fictional series of events or narrative concepts would be over.
And if you wanted to do something new it would just be coming up with a new um algorithm. A new sequence.
Which is really what it is anyway.
We all pretend there’s something magic about it but actually it’s just algorithms. (78)
Here Adam castigates the group for thinking that what they do is unique, yet Baker’s word choice is suggestive of both the tone she attempts to strike and point she attempts to make, at times, throughout The Antipodes. The Antipodes is a topical play, and the satirical allusion to a tech-narrative, one that uses algorithmic solutions to successfully deliver the ultimate narrative experience, gestures toward the limits of data and algorithms as the method of correcting the messiness of humanity. Furthermore, notice how simple Adam’s solution sounds. Let us dispense with world-building, and in its place deliver the feelings and responses that narrative trajectory, causality, and thoughtful character development offer. It sounds elegant in its simplicity, right? This, of course, is Baker’s point. It all sounds too simple. It all sounds too elegant to be true. What Adam describes is the commodification of a story and not a story itself. If stories were this simple, would anyone enjoy them? Is it possible that part of what makes stories interesting is the messiness, the miscommunication, and the mistakes, and is it possible that The Antipodes attempts to dramatize those essential elements to narrative and storytelling?
But Baker is not cynical in her critique. Later in the play, Adam is the only member of this group who produces a story that transcends both the limits of language and the fallibility of humanity. He does this not by calculating a precise mathematical equation but by talking and developing a story spontaneously, or as he suggests “just bullshitting” (101). Regrettably, it’s not perfect; it’s not without some messiness. Eleanor, another newly-added member to the group, interrupts him when she realizes that no one transcribed Adam’s story. Within the universe of the play, Adam’s story is lost. The best story is the one that no one can reproduce or commodify, nor can a group of coders develop an algorithm that stimulates “the parts of the brain that respond to story and like specific story elements.” Furthermore, Adam’s story is without an ending because it was interrupted. In its incomplete messiness, it embodies a central theme of Annie Baker’s stunning new play.