Review: ‘The Antipodes’ and Ambiguous Brainstorming

This is a play that nobody at the NYT would have written about if the playwright hadn't been a doe-eyed white girl who still finds value in questions like "is time vertical/horizontal?" and "are stories all dead?" I'm under 30 and I nearly fell asleep constantly. Compare to Signature Theater's wonderful VENUS—that show had a coherent idea, structure, plot. And I like Beckett. This was trash writing.

I saw this play tonight largely because of the words of Mr. Brantley's rave review ("Annie Baker’s in-all-ways fabulous new play"). New it is, but all-ways fabulous it is not. The actors and the director did everything they could, but Ms Baker, gave them, at best, only a half a play to work with. Storytelling could be a worthy, arresting subject in some other playwright's hands. Conceptually it is interesting. It is magical. But "The Antipodes" is not that play. However, it is well named as it is the opposite of what it pretends to be.

This is a play for academics, not audiences who care for things like plot and drama. The first half hour is funny and engaging, but by the last half hour I felt like a hostage. It reminded me of an Andy Kaufman stunt where he would deliberately try to see how much the audience could take. I imagined the actors had been instructed to keep on talking until a certain number of audience members left in disgust. There were two walkouts the night I attended, but I stubbornly stayed until the end. If you are really curious, read the play when it is published. The play may be an intellectual exercise but it is not drama, and the actors can’t save it. Only Will Patton and Nicole Rodenburg create anything approaching a character. (And I liked “The Flick” btw.)

I don't buy the approach that some people "get" Annie Baker and some don't, so don't criticize what you don't understand. I thought The Aliens was a fine piece of work, and The Flick was interesting and subtle, even if a little trying. But John was an empty vessel, all atmosphere and no content, and Antipodes was torture, in my opinion. The concept of the play might have worked, as a play or even just as a metaphor, if there was anything remotely interesting going on in that conference room. Instead, a collection of nondescript characters tell stories that range from witless to juvenile. I am sure that somewhere in there she has a point to make about the nature of storytelling but it was unbearably tedious to sit through.

I loved The Aliens (which I read and saw a local production of). I loved The Flick (off-Bway and local). And I LOVED Antipodes. Tho, as I said at the end to my neighbors (who also loved it), I think it's the kind of play you're either gonna love or hate. Such beautiful lyrical writing. Such wonderfully drawn characters. Yes it could be five minutes shorter but for me the whole 2 hours passed by in what seemed like 20 glorious minutes. Maybe it was cause I had just come from the JMW Turner show at the Frick that made me even more inclined to love such a somewhat abstract work. That said, in lesser hands (writing or acting/directing) I'd hate to see it. But what's great is that Baker doesn't do all the work for you; you have to imagine certain things yourself. And that first bit of stage magic (you'll know or do know what I'm talking about) was one of the most fantastic and fantastical things I've ever seen/experienced in a theater as much for it's simplicity as its legerdemain. You won't regret seeing it.

I loved this show. A bit too long and boring at times with the crazy, endless stories. But Ms. Baker knew what she was doing, in order to get different reactions from her audience members because I heard audiences reacting differently to the diverse stories at different times. My husband and I disagreed completely interpreting the play: He said it was "a play about nothing", which at first made me feel a bit uninterested; this was my first Annie Baker play. Then when we got home he went on to say things that didn't make much sense, related to the so many stories the characters in the play tell. To me, it was a group of storytellers hired by an obsessed old guy whose life is coming close to really old age, for an unknown project which relates to his obsession, and they all basically suck at telling interesting stories most of the times. Or perhaps they can't satisfy the old, obsessed man because it's impossible to satisfy his obsession. Thus, Ms. Baker filled the play in with perhaps hundreds of stories, and somehow it worked.

Life in era of Trump?

This is a brilliant play. Smart, funny, and profound. It is a pleasure to see experience unfold in real time. There is little in theatre (or much of anything else for that matter) that lets the audience luxuriate in brilliant language and ideas. The ideas are not perfect, but no idea is. The willingness to explore ambiguity and darkness is a gift. I look forward to her next work.

I saw it yesterday (Sunday). I loved it. Yes it's long. But it's very funny and often intense. As someone who sits in a lot of meetings where nothing happens but where people feel the need to talk in order to impress colleagues, I really related to the play. The undercurrent of fear was amazing and the actress who played Sarah blew me away. That character has been described as an "airhead" but she really seemed like a fluffy millennial who was intensely fearful of her environment and her future.

I loved Baker's "Circle, Mirror, Transformation" and especially "The Flick" about which I raved for weeks to anyone who would listen to me. I saw it twice. But I did not like "John" - ghost stories are not my thing. I went to see "Antipodes" knowing that BB raved about it, that I basically have a good history with Baker's plays and that I knew many of the actors involved and think highly of their work. I still do think highly of their work. Not so much the direction that Baker is taking with her plays. Even the clever bits got tiresome quickly and much of the dialogue was hard to understand with actors sitting with their backs to one side of the room. It could have to do with age and a higher level of expectation I suppose.

loved the times review and loved the play. I had several of the best laughs Ive had in the theater in a long time. I knew 6 people who saw it my night and we left repeating lines and cracking up. A couple of the stories rivaled eric bogosian in his prime. wonderful mostly for its use of language and theater-as-art feeling.

Of Baker's earlier plays I've seen only Circle Mirror Transformation, which was wonderful. Antipodes is very disappointing. Baker has some interesting points to make about storytelling and the place of storytelling in human experience; however her characters are tiresome, and their stories don't add up to much. (It seems she herself got tired of Danny M2 and simply sent him away.) Certainly an honorable effort, but I wouldn't encourage anyone to see it.

I could not disagree more with the review. Nothing in the play added up - there was little drama, little plot movement, just a bunch of people who were not very creative or interesting to hear trying to come up with an idea.

What was the wolf costume about? Or the upchuck moment?

It was as if the playwright had to write a play, could not come up with anything coherent, but met the deadline.

The review in Variety of this play was much more accurate in my opinion.

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I was really excited to see the "Antidopes," the true story of the rising resistance to Trump.

If there's a new Annie Baker play, that means one thing: the NYTimes theater commenters have come out to weigh in. Thankfully, I don't see any "emperor's new clothes"-type accusations hurled about yet - I recall comments on reviews of her other plays insisting that everyone must be *pretending* to like her work, to fit in. Apparently the Pulitzer has finally convinced them that Annie Baker is no fad, and that her work resonates deeply with a large audience.

I can't be ageist and accuse all the older folks in the crowd of "not getting it," because at a Q&A for this play last week, many older people spoke up to compliment her style. But there does seem to be something of a generation gap when it comes to her plays. I don't think I'm generalizing when I say younger audiences like her better than older audiences.

That's fine. It happens. In 50 years, I may well not *get* the next big thing in playwriting. But for the life of me I can't understand why you'd keep going to her plays (and leaving grumpy comments on the reviews) if you know you don't like her style. The audiences at both John and The Antipodes were some of the worst I've sat with in my life -- loud whispers, complaining, snoring, rustling, cellphones going off. If you don't intend to give it a shot and pay attention, why even go?

If you don't get Annie Baker, fine, but STOP GOING TO HER SHOWS. Leave the seat open for someone younger (when we can afford it) or just more open-minded. Everyone will be a lot happier.

The play was, at best, moderately interesting. It started well but the playwright did not seem to know how to develop it. It might also be worth pointing out that this was a play of over two hours and neither the playwright nor the theater has seen fit to have an intermission. If nature calls, you are in a jam. The theater will not allow you back in and you have to watch the remainder of the play on a monitor. So if you are older or simply need an occasional bathroom break, you might be better off skipping this one. It's really not worth suffering for anyway.

I think you need to be a writer, critic or someone intimately involved with storytelling to get what this play is really about. For everyone else, it's a revelatory glimpse at the creative process. The personal stories of the writers are also fascinating. Also how this "boiler-room" operates -- the relaxed but intimidating supervisory style of Sandy, the leader (one of the writers gets fired, but no one says anything about it). The photo of the conference table is deceptive -- no audience member sees the set from that angle. We sit on risers on both long sides of the table, and that is a deliberate choice of Baker and Neugebauer, as well.

Far from my experience of being trapped in an interminable cocktail party attended by boring people getting drunker and drunker and talking about themselves nonstop. Leaves you glowing? More like stunned.

Sort of shocked that Brantley was able to praise this aspect of Annie's adept ear:

"She also provides evidence of her peerless ear for contemporary language; in this case, it’s the lingo of creative corporate speak, with its calculated humblebrag, masturbational jaw-flapping and implicit sexism. (There’s only one woman among the eight people at the table.)"

Yet seems reticent to engage with any sort of criticism of her lack of interest, or acumen at listening for the other implicit system st work in creative corporate speak, that of systemic racism. In this play not only is there only one woman but there is also only one POC, the incredible Phillip James Brannon. Yet as I watched the show I kept waiting for his moment of naming his life, his identity in this space and it never came. The play seemed uninterested in it to the point that I would've wondered if he was actually black if the female character hadn't noticed that both of their words were never taken down by the assistant. In 2017, I feel as though conversations around race and gender would have been more comfortably on the tongues of at least these two characters in this room and one of the least naturalistic aspects of this play is that Annie felt that they should not be.

Brantley must have seen a different play. This play is entirely too long and modestly interesting at best. And I liked it more than my three compatriots.