Worker Ants Build a Colony in A(U)NTS! — Review

Ants can’t tunnel into brick, but they still crawl in through the cracks in the mortar. That’s what happens in Zoë Geltman’s playful, energetic new play A(U)NTS!, now playing at the Brick in Williamsburg. Mixing workplace comedy with an insect extravaganza, this play looks to answer questions about gender, how biology shapes identity, and whether a collective can drown out the desires of the individual.

Sherylann, Annie, and Renee work at the dental office of Lipman, Lipman, and Lipman, where they fill the gaps between appointments chatting and trying to overlook minor differences in their values and interests. They are work friends, and their conversations often returns to things they share: living in and around New York as single women without kids, dating, dealing with family. All three women are aunts: Sherylann’s coterie of nieces includes an eight-year-old named Minky, while Renee has seven nephews in Westchester. They are all somewhat frustrated: Annie (Jehan O. Young) seems listless in the aftermath of a breakup; Sherylann (Geltman) is anxious to find love and maybe even start a family; and Renee (Megan Hill) resents the expectation that she should change her behavior for a man.

Director Julia Sirna-Frest breaks up the workplace conversations with surreal interstitials with electronic underscoring and phosphorescent lighting by Megan Lang. Here, the ants begin creeping into the play: human legs and ant appendages emerge from behind a desk, rhythmically twitching. Then it’s back to the drab office, which set designer Jiaying Zhang has flanked with reminders of the play’s mysteries: banks of soil on either side of the stage and a backdrop made of strips of opalescent fabric.

Slowly but surely, things begin to shift. One night, after being stood up, Annie wanders the city until she finds herself at a Hare Krishna-adjacent “chant” gathering, eating a “beautiful meal” in a brownstone full of strangers. The next day, she describes the experience to her coworkers, explaining the freedom she felt in the group’s structured ritual practices. The implicit comparison to insect societies recalls this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner, Purpose, which uses beehives as a metaphor for the idea of “purpose.” But Geltman takes things further, blending human and insect life.

Roughly three-quarters of ants are female, and almost all of them are childless workers. Two of the three women are already a bit like ants. Geltman’s peppy Sherylann finds purpose in her work at Dr. Lipman’s office, meaningless as it may seem to outsiders. Her chatty manner helps her connect with patients, and she takes her work seriously, even when it irks Renee. Annie finds comfort in routines and is open to collective experiences like “chant.” After taking a suspicious Renee to a chant session, Annie explains her appreciation for the group’s firm hierarchy. Yes, she admits, the group has a leader, but “it’s not like any ONE person is making all these decisions. It’s this kind of wave of knowledge that comes over the whole group.” She tells Renee to stick with it—eventually, she might share that feeling.

Geltman and Hill have the showier roles, and their characters’ debates about the value of family life and traditional gender roles are essential to the script. But Young has the most interesting material, and her performance gives the show depth. Her Annie is warm and thoughtful, searching for meaning wherever she can find it. The character feels so grounded that her transformation at the end of the play seems earned.

The play occasionally bends under the weight of its own metaphors, but the visual touches are strong enough to keep this production from breaking down. Foremost among them are the ant masks by the artist and puppeteer Mark Fox, who also designed the outlandish masks in the show’s promotional artwork (for an earlier developmental production). Here, Fox opts for simpler designs that emphasize uniformity and community: with their bulging red eyes and sharply angled antennae, these faces are nearly identical.

At one point, Renee chastises Sherylann for her steakhouse salad order, saying it indicates her complicity in a larger patriarchal structure. Sherylann rejects the premise, saying she just wanted a salad. “I am a human being,” she shouts. “I am a human being with agency!” So if the show’s insect and human realms never quite reach a satisfying stasis, perhaps that’s by design: whether or not we always like it, being human means making our own choices.

A(U)NTS! is in performance through May 24, 2025 at the Brick Theater in Williamsburg. For tickets and more information, visit here.