“Marjorie Prime,” currently gracing Broadway with the talents of Cynthia Nixon, June Squibb, Danny Burstein, and Christopher Lowell, explores a thought-provoking concept. It envisions a world where technology could craft personalized robots, enabling individuals like a grieving widow with dementia to interact with replicas of their departed loved ones. These robots could be tailored to appear as they did in their prime — youthful, vibrant, and full of life.
The storyline unfolds with an elderly character, portrayed by Squibb, engaging in a dialogue with just such a robot, a handsome figure brought to life by Lowell.
My initial encounter with this intriguing play by Jordan Harrison was back in 2015 in Chicago. Back then, the idea seemed both fascinating and comfortably distant, more of a whimsical notion than a real possibility. My reaction leaned towards the humorous side: “Isn’t this better than mingling with strangers in a nursing home?”
Fast forward to today, and the play resonates on a much more unsettling level, amplified by the relentless march of time. Rarely have I experienced a theatrical work that feels so dramatically different with the passage of a decade.
Such technology is now within reach, thanks to strides in artificial intelligence and human mapping, which can recreate our essence posthumously by analyzing our histories and behaviors. With the technological framework in place, all that’s left is the physical manifestation.
Anne Kauffman directs Harrison’s concise 80-minute piece with a focus on its core themes, imbuing it with a newfound urgency that provokes thought in numerous directions. Initially, one might ponder the potential improvements in dementia and senior care through these tireless robotic companions. However, as Harrison skillfully guides you, deeper concerns emerge: Who will control the programming of these entities?
Danny Burstein and Cynthia Nixon in “Marjorie Prime” on Broadway. (Photo by Joan Marcus)
Thus Harrison’s 80-minute play, directed with an eye on what matters most by Anne Kauffman, has a new urgency that sends your head spiraling in all kinds of directions. As you watch, you likely will first think about how dementia care — heck, all kinds of senior care — could be immeasurably improved by these robots that can work 24-hour shifts. But after a while, since Harrison leads you by the hand that way, your head will go to the problems: Who would win the fight to program these things?
Imagine, for example, two warring siblings with different views of their father. His “Prime” version could reflect just one of their dubious takes on his identity, leading his widow down the kind of garden path that strikes me as dangerous for the entire human race. Taking that a step further, the play explores the likelihood that we won’t even be able to control representations of ourselves after we are dead. For some, that’s already the case, God help us.
Joan Marcus
June Squibb and Cynthia Nixon in “Marjorie Prime” on Broadway. (Photo by Joan Marcus)
Harrison explores this issues with a simple, four-character play that begins with the aforementioned conversation but then focuses on Marjorie’s daughter and son-in-law, played by Nixon and Burstein, nice people in their late fifties who are trying to figure out how they feel about this technology and, just as importantly, what it might mean for them in their own future (I won’t give that away, but the play, like the world, only spins forward).
Kauffman is one of America’s most humanistic stage directors and both Nixon and Burstein forge likeable characters, focused on the vulnerability those of us close to 60 years old feel when it comes to the demise and loss of our parents. I should note that I walked into Second Stage’s Hayes Theatre having just spent extended time with my 102-year-old mother, so that certainly was in my head, although she was not talking to any robots. Yet. She does talk to carers, though, and they have only limited, quickly crammed knowledge of her rich life. A robot of my dad perhaps could write a book.
You see where this play takes you?
Joan Marcus
Christopher Lowell and June Squibb in “Marjorie Prime” on Broadway.
Nixon’s Tess is vulnerable enough for you to sense the fear in her eyes, but this is an actress with a steely core and, indeed, Nixon turns on a dime when her character realizes, as I think many of us have or will, that this brave new world is short on both guardrails and moral principles. Burstein is equally effective as husband Jon, his warm eyes dancing with empathy, although we are not always so sure about that, given his programming skills. “Am I supposed not to notice she is being nicer to that thing than me?” Tess snaps at one point, bringing up another salient A.I. issue.
Squibb, 96, whose Broadway career stretches back to her role as Electra in the original 1960 production of “Gypsy,” is implacably excellent. For the record, she is the oldest actress ever to open a Broadway show.
Comparisons surely will be made with another Broadway show about robots, “Maybe Happy Ending,” a quite lovely musical that also uses them as proxies for a study of mortality. The singing robots have degraded batteries, though. The ones in “Marjorie Prime” appear to go on forever; it’s the humans who die first.
