B'way/Off-B'way Review: Marjorie Prime; Meet the Cartozians

Christopher Lowell and June Squibb in
Marjorie Prime.
Credit: Joan Marcus

When Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in 2015, the play was hailed as a complex, compassionate rumination on grief and memory (I concurred.) It also was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Set in the near future, the short, powerful work focuses on the effects of advanced technology on a family facing aging and loss. 

Marjorie is in her 80s. She relies on an android programmed to resemble a younger version of her late husband Walter for company, comfort and to help fortify her fading memory. The presence of the living computer causes rifts in Marjorie’s relations with her prickly, depressed daughter Tess and her understanding son-in-law Jon. Familial tensions and tragedies follow as Marjorie, Tess and Jon all must come to terms with loss. 

Danny Burstein and Cynthia Nixon
in Marjorie Prime.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Now a decade after the original NY production, a Broadway version presented by Second Stage at the Hayes Theater has an even deeper resonance. Artificial intelligence (AI) has arrived and the play is more immediate as the possibilities Harrison raises of duplicate departed loved ones come closer to reality. Memories become distorted when more palatable, idealized versions of the past are fed into the artificial beings’ software. For example, Marjorie and Walter’s proposal story is embellished from taking place after the couple went to the movies to see the silly comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding to the more romantic image of taking in the classic Casablanca at a charming indie theater. These distortions gradually become the accepted version as AI bots multiply and take over the flesh-and-blood characters’ shared narratives. Another theme becomes heartbreakingly clear as each member of the family must accept a death and turn to the AI-generated dopplegangers for consolation rather than facing the loved ones’ permanent absence. Harrison is examining our modern tendency to suppress our true emotions with fuzzy feel-good substitutes.  

Anne Kauffman repeats her directing chores from the 2015 production and delivers a subtly different, moving production, augmented by Daniel Kluger’s evocative original music. Lee Jellinek’s futuristic set perfectly blends the sterile scientific environment with subtle touches of a homey atmosphere. 

June Squibb in Marjorie Prime.
Credit: Joan Marcus

The cast skillfully balances raw emotions with the smooth, manufactured responses of the computer beings. Ninety-six-year-old June Squibb captures Marjorie’s wit and fiery passion to live as well as her frustration with her infirmities. She also keenly documents her struggle to retain her memories and the terrible acknowledgment that it’s a losing battle. Cynthia Nixon’s Tess is a maddeningly real amalgam of disappointed daughter, alienated mother of her own children and bundle of existential angst. She makes Tess’ obsessing over Marjorie’s well-being sympathetic and we can feel her ache of despair as she discovers the futility of advanced medicine and tech to stave off the inevitable. Danny Burstein is both lovably endearing and shatteringly intense as the aggrieved Jon who progresses from supportive comforter of his wife and mother-in-law to devastated survivor. Christopher Lowell as Walter has the difficult task of playing an artificial construct of a human. He conveys the computer’s desire to help and its emotionless demeanor. This is a thought-provoking and emotionally stirring production sure to ignite discussion and reflection on where we are as we hurtle towards an uncertain future where AI takes more and more from reality.

Will Brill, Tamara Sevunts, Andrea Martin,
Raffi Barsoumian, and Nael Nacer in
Meet the Cartozians.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Second Stage’s other most recent production is equally multilayered and moving. Talene Monahon’s Meet the Cartozians (closed Off-Broadway at the Pershing Square Signature Center) follows an Armenian-American family’s legal battle to fit into Yankee society and the aftereffects of their struggle. The trauma of the 1915-6 Armenian genocide by the Turkish government still devastates the Cartozian clan as they face a challenge to their bid for citizenship in 1923 Portland, Oregon. Then, in the second act, 100 years later while waiting for an interview with a reality TV star (probably based on Kim Kardashian) in Glendale, California, four leaders of the Armenian-American community debate the status of their ethnic and cultural identity amid shifting political sensibilities.

Monahon raises many fascinating and complicated issues about race, religion, and the American Dream. “What is that makes a white person?,” one of the characters asks as the Cartozians navigate the treacherous intricacies of the immigration system with the aide of an Irish-American lawyer who has his own prejudices. The question recurs in the second act as the 21st century Armenian-Americans wrestle with the issue from a different angle. Are they white, Middle Eastern, or something else? Or are they just Armenian and what does that mean?

David Cromer delivers an understated, subtle staging with each of the six able cast members (Raffi Barsoumian, Will Brill, Andrea Martin, Nael Nacer, Susan Pourfar and Tamara Sevunts) giving equal weight to dual roles. Andrea Martin is shattering as the Cartozain matriarch and sharply funny as a contemporary activist tired of political correctness. Will Brill gives depth to the Irish-American lawyer and bite and humor to the reality-TV show techie. Tamara Sevunts skillfully portrays the intelligence of the maiden Cartozian daughter in the 1920s and makes her brief role of the Kardashian-like star more than a caricature. Raffia Barsoumian captures the vibrancy of the Cartozian eldest son and the insecurity of his contemporary counterpart who must deal with suspicion because of his Arabic appearance. Susan Pourfur passionately defends her character’s stand that Armenians deserve special census categorization while fussing over the state of the food she has prepared. Neal Nacer movingly limns the struggles of the Cartozian father to become a US citizen and a 21st century citizen seeking to understand his place in a changing America. 

Marjorie Prime: Dec. 8—Feb. 15. Second Stage at the Hayes Theater, 240 W. 44th St., NYC. Running time: 90 mins. with no intermission. 2st.com.

Meet the Cartozians: Nov. 17—Dec. 14. Second Stage at the Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 W. 42nd St., NYC. Running time: two hours and 20 mins. including intermission. 2st.com.