With Lauren Gunderson’s Anthropology, Barefoot Theatre Collaborative Explores AI Tech and Grief

As Barefoot Theatre Collaborative closes its run of Lauren Gunderson’s Anthropology, the director and cast talk about their own experiences of loss and grief.

As the technology progresses day by day, artificial intelligence is slowly taking over our lives. When we Google something, an AI overview is at the top of the page. On social media, users generate AI photos and videos by feeding personal media into AI models. And in Lauren Gunderson’s play, Anthropology, she asks what happens when AI becomes our way of processing grief?

Staged in the Philippines by Barefoot Theatre Collaborative, the story follows Merril, an AI programmer dealing with the sudden loss of her sister Angie. Refusing to accept her disappearance, Merril creates an AI modeled after her sister, feeding the program data and memories in an attempt to find a resolution.

Directed by Caisa Borromeo, the play has an all-female cast, with Jenny Jamora starring as Merril, Maronne Cruz as Angie, Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante playing Merril’s love interest, Raquel, and Jackie Lou Blanco playing Brin, the mother of the two sisters.

Although the premise of AI is the hook of the story, Borromeo was drawn to the play because of the vulnerability of the characters and the storytelling. “I love how Anthropology examines the desperate need to connect while grieving,” she says. “I was also drawn towards the script being told from the perspectives of four very complex, layered women, all wanting, grieving, and searching for something individually.”

To build these layers, the process began by establishing a clear understanding of their relationship and dynamic, as well as understanding their own relationship with grief. “It was pretty cathartic having these discussions, and I think it created a safe space for us to dive into more traumatic issues that helped us relate and connect with all the characters,” she says.

Cruz, in particular, has an interesting role in the story. In the play, she plays the two versions of Angie, one who’s an AI model and the real Angie. “I thought of them as different versions of the same character,” she says. “We tend to put our best foot forward, or at least our most palatable foot forward online. The internet doesn’t see the full extent of our complexities, our difficulties, our failures. I approached Angie, both the real one and her AI version, with this in mind.”

For Blanco, she tapped into her own experiences as a mother. “I looked into myself and just thought of my weaknesses as a mother, my faults, my regrets, and went from there,” she says. “I am a mother who does her best to ask forgiveness from my children with my shortcomings, and that’s what Brin tries to do.”

For Jamora, she felt the weight of Merril’s grief when she remembered the friends she lost over the past year. Although she doesn’t use personal memories in a play, having gone through loss made her informed the gravity of her role. “It’s very important for me to be very honest and very truthful about it because not only have I lost friends, but my friends were even closer to those friends,” she says.

She also shares that the staging of the play has the presence of a friend who passed away. Gerard Alexander “G.A.” Fallarme, a renowned projection and video designer, lost his life last October. In Anthropology, Jamora shares that the laptop she uses throughout the show is Fallarme’s, which made her distraught when she first used the device. “This is why I don’t like using personal memories!” she shares. Fallarme’s protegé, Joyce Garcia, is also the play’s video designer.

Reflecting on her experience working with women, Jamora encourages women to share their voices and express themselves. “Sometimes, actually, what’s hard is we’re given a platform to express ourselves, and then things start getting in the way of our own insecurities,” she says. “One of the great things about being a woman is that we’re very empathetic, and I hope we can have this empathy for ourselves and for others as well.”

It is this examination of memory, relationships, loss, and grief that shines in the play. And in doing so, asks us to do the same. “I hope the Filipino audiences watch with an open mind and open heart, to allow themselves to be vulnerable too. I hope this show reminds them to connect with the people in their lives without devices,” Borromeo says.

Anthropology will have its final run on March 28 and 29, 2026, at the Doreen Black Box, Areté, in Quezon City.