Marjorie Prime
Written by Jordan Harrison
Books on Vernon, 664 Vernon, Glencoe (map)
thru Feb 28 | tix: $35-$70 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
A sci-fi view of the future through the lens of memory
Writers Theatre presents
Marjorie Prime
Review by Catey Sullivan
As the final show in the storied back-of-the-bookstore space that played a pivotal role in making a national name for Writers Theatre, Marjorie Prime has a meta-theatrical feel to it. The Midwest premiere of Jordan Harrison’s sci-fi relationship drama offers a view of the future through the lens of memory. It’s impossible to watch without thinking that the very space where it unfolds will soon be only a memory.
Director Kimberly Senior helms a story that’s accessible and compelling, even as the philosophical conundrums it poses become almost too weighty to wrap your mind around.
In the futureworld of Harrison’s drama, the pain of losing a loved one can be mitigated by “primes,” or lifelike robot/hologram entities that look precisely like your dearly departed. For 86-year-old Marjorie (Mary Ann Thebus), chatting with Walter Prime (Erik Hellman) is a comfort in the face of her husband Walter’s death. But Primes aren’t entirely satisfying replacements. They have no memories of their own. Starting out as blank slates, they only remember what they’re told. If there’s a memory you find troubling or embarrassing or mundane or traumatic, all you have to do is tell the Prime what you wish had happened. As your own memories fade, the prime reminds you of what you wish had happened. Soon, that’s all you remember.
In Marjorie’s case, the modifications initially seem inconsequential: She wishes Walter had proposed to her after a better movie than “My Best Friend’s Wedding.” She’d rather Walter’s romantic rival for her love was a dashing celebrity athlete rather than a drywall salesman. But as Harrison’s spare, pointed dialog continues, the audience becomes privy to more disturbing memory modifications. Walter Prime knows nothing of the tragedy that defined Marjorie and Walter’s entire married live. What is erased isn’t just sadness. An entire person, once a joyfully integral part of Marjorie’s life and identity, is also gone.
It’s that sort of wholesale erasure that spooks Marjorie’s daughter. Tess (Kate Fry) is virulently anti-prime. Walter Prime isn’t Walter, she snaps – he’s a computer program. Moreover, bonding with an amalgam of algorithms and circuitry is morally repugnant and emotionally dangerous. Tess’s husband Jon (Nathan Hosner) isn’t so sure. Primes are a source of comfort to an old woman who has lost just about everything , he tells Tess – and why would you want to rob her of that?
Harrison doesn’t offer any answers (nobody could) about the ethics of Primes or the slippery world of memory. But he delivers the questions with enough drama to sustain the intermission-less piece. Almost: Marjorie Prime’s final scene is a disappointment. It doesn’t ring true, even in the sci-fi future of the story. Without indulging in spoilers, we’ll just say watching that final scene we were put in mind of the rather silly image of smart phones and the like coming to life and holding secret social hours while human owners were occupied elsewhere.
Still, the Senior’s cast is strong. Thebus’ Marjorie is a stark, often troubling reminder of what awaits for all of us should we survive into our ninth decade. Fry’s prickly, bitter Tess shows the deep vulnerability underneath the character’s angry exterior. Hellman is appropriately disconcerting as a non-human who gradually becomes more and more lifelike. And Hosner’s Jon provides a portrait of kindness and basic human decency.
Rating: ★★★
Marjorie Prime continues through February 28th at Books on Vernon, 664 Vernon, Glencoe (map), with performances Tuesdays at 7:30pm, Wednesdays 3pm and 7:30pm, Thursdays and Fridays 7:30pm, Saturdays 3pm and 7:30pm, Sundays 2pm and 6pm. Tickets are $35-$70, and are available by phone (847-242-6000) or online through their website (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at WritersTheatre.org. (Running time: 80 minutes, no intermission)
Photos by Michael Brosilow
artists
cast
Kate Fry (Tess), Erik Hellman (Walter), Nathan Hosner (Jon), Mary Ann Thebus (Marjorie), Iris Lieberman (u/s Marjorie), John Henry Roberts (u/s Walter, Jon), Stacy Stoltz (u/s Tess)
behind the scenes
Kimberly Senior (director), Brian Sidney Bembridge (scenic and lighting design), Jenny Mannis (costume designer), Rick Sims (sound design, composer), Carolyn Cristofani (prop design), Bobby Kennedy (dramaturg), Amber Gensterblum (asst. director), David Castellanos (production stage manager), Mallory Bass (asst. stage manager), Caleb McAndrew (technical supervisor), Jane Heuer (wardrobe supervisor), Emily Waecker (costume supervisor), Simon Robinson (master electrician), Amanda Hosking (sound engineer), Michael Brosilow (photos)
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