 |
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.
