What if an algorithm could bring back someone you’d lost, or a near-perfect facsimile of that person? What if that algorithm could then investigate their disappearance and come up with answers even the police couldn’t find? This is the heady premise of Lauren Gunderson’s anthropology, the latest slam dunk for Rogue Machine Theatre.

It’s been a year since 20-year-old Angie vanished, a year during which computer whiz Merril (Alexandra Hellquist) has culled data from everything her younger sister had left behind (voicemails, e-mails, search histories, calls, FaceTime, calendar, retweets, comments, and the like) and dumped all of this data into a chat box program repurposed to predict Angie’s responses to whatever Merril might ask her.

And though the resultant “algorithm” is still a work in progress, all Merril has to do is log on to her computer and Angie is back, and so realistically alive on screen that you might easily believe Merril to be Zooming with her younger sister in real time.

But what next?

Can computer “Angie” (Kaylee Kaneshiro) actually retrace the real-life Angie’s steps the day she disappeared? And if so, what then?

How will this affect Merril’s separation from an ex (Julia Manis’s Raquel) who gave up trying to put up with her girlfriend’s obsession with her algorithmic creation?

And what about Brin (Nan McNamara), whose addictions, not to mention her multiple marriages, led to estrangements with both her daughters? Will the truth set these women free and allow them to rekindle their broken relationships? Will AI “Angie” be any more successful than the police were in providing answers to her mysterious disappearance?

It’s questions like these that will keep audiences riveted throughout anthropology’s brisk 90-minute running time.

 After all, who amongst us wouldn’t jump at the chance to be reunited with someone we’ve loved and lost forever?

And if that person just happened to have disappeared without a trace, wouldn’t we all jump at the chance to use the latest advances in technology to do what law enforcement had been unable to?

 No wonder then that anthropology, a Rogue Machine North American Premiere and one of Lauren Gunderson’s most provocative plays ever, had me on the edge of my seat from start to finish, and just wait for the doozy of a plot twist anthropology has in store for audiences about two-thirds of the way through.

Gunderson’s latest may be a change of pace for the woman who gave us the true-story-based Silent Sky and Emilie, but like Rogue Machine’s recent Corktown ‘39, Monsters Of The American Cinema, and Middle Of The World before it, it provides further proof that where Los Angeles intimate theater is concerned, nobody does it better than Rogue Machine.

Performances couldn’t be finer under John Perrin Flynn’s razor-sharp direction beginning with Hellquist’s Merril, the Rogue Machine favorite simply mesmerizing as a woman obsessed with discovering the truth no matter how horrible it might be.

McNamara is fiery, damaged perfection as a mother hoping to overcome her demons and atone for her sins, Manis does powerhouse work as a woman who could no longer put up with being left out, and Kaneshiro makes a darned impressive transition from TV to live theater.

 And speaking of impressive, you won’t find a more spectacular AI and video design all year than Michelle Hanzelova-Bierbauer’s dazzler, one that had me almost believing that all the technology on display was real.

Add to that Stephanie Kerley Schwartz’s set and costumes, Dan Weingarten’s lighting, assistant director Athena Saxon’s props, and Christopher Moscatiello’s sound design and you’ve got as crème-de-la-crème a production design as any playwright or theatergoer could wish for.

anthropology is produced by Lexi Sloan, Chisom Okoye, Guillermo Cienfuegos, and Justin Okin. Casting is by Victoria Hoffman. Rich Wong is stage manager.

Ned Mochel is violence designer, Fritz Davis is video engineer, Tony Valdes is wig master, Lazaro Tio is lighting design assistant, Carly DW Bones is intimacy director, Grant Gerrard is technical director, and Judith Borne is publicist.

Had anthropology debuted five or ten years ago, it might have come across as mere science fiction.

Not so in 2025 when AI has become a reality in our daily lives. (If you haven’t used ChatGPT, you’d better get with it or get left behind.)

That the story Lauren Gunderson has to tell feels more like fact than farfetched fiction is one of many reasons to add Rogue Machine’s latest to your list of fall must-sees.

Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles.
www.roguemachinetheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
October 10, 2025
Photos: Jeff Lorch

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

Tags: Lauren Gunderson, Los Angeles Theater Review, Matrix Theatre, Rogue Machine Theatre