June Squibb Finds Post-AI Humanity in MARJORIE PRIME — Review

Freshly 96, June Squibb is giving one of the sharpest and most emotionally precise performances currently onstage in the Broadway premiere of Marjorie Prime, Jordan Harrison’s one-act about an elderly widow and the lifelike robot modeled after her late husband. Exquisitely directed by Anne Kauffman, and rounded out by Cynthia Nixon, Danny Burstein and Christopher Lowell, it’s an intelligent prayer for raw humanity in the face of catastrophic tech complacency.

The setup is simple, at first feeling like a dramedy about a daughter dealing with her Alzheimer’s-stricken mother’s antics at an assisted-living community. That’d be Tess (Nixon), who’s less than thrilled with her mother Marjorie’s (Squibb) growing attachment to her Prime: a friendly humanoid who can retain information and stand in for a person. Like Tess’ father, it’s named Walter; but unlike how he went out, it’s portrayed at peak physicality to resemble the man in his 30s (Christpher Lowell, in an excellently automated performance). Tess’ husband Jon (Danny Burstein) deems it mostly harmless for Marjorie to have a companion in her later years, even though the Prime grows from whatever possibly flawed information it is fed. For Tess, there’s a gnawing tension in allowing her mother the sweet respite of fond memories when it’s chased by the knowledge that the harder she leans on the built-to-please technology’s coddling, the further from reality she’ll become. The ultimate irony, of course, lies in the “couple’s” generative divergence: as hers decreases, his grows stronger.

I cannot imagine how this played in 2014, when it premiered. Today, with people developing “AI psychosis” from constant interactions with services like ChatGPT, it is almost unbearably grim. Thankfully, that’s where the performances, built gloriously from Harrison’s script, come in.

Lowell ably fuses the tender warmth for which his character has been created with the icy distance of its reality. Burstein radiates an empathy that grows as his character must navigate murkier emotional realities. Nixon, as always, is extremely skilled at portraying women long backed into a hardened corner – equal parts their own steely volition and as a result of the world’s apathy – but with a bittersweet warmth at this knowledge.

At the center of this, even as the story cleverly shifts focus, is Squibb and her masterfully expressive face. In contrast to her younger costars, the veteran often plays out towards the audience, finding her light somewhere between our hearts and minds; this is someone who understands the art of stage performance. Her organic turns between girlish glee and instantly heartbreaking anguish are genuinely staggering.

Harrison’s drama is equally poignant, not only in its thematic conceit and narrative scope but in its beautiful turns of phrase: “I don’t have to get better. Just keep me from getting worse,” Marjorie begs of her Prime.

The production is equally delicate, with Lee Jellinek’s Palm Springs-style home set pulling off a simple, bravura gesture in the play’s final moments, aided by Ben Stanton’s lighting and Daniel Kluger’s sound design. The clothes which Márion Talán de la Rosa has designed for Squibb are enviably cozy.

That Marjorie Prime doesn’t end in abject misery, even as it inches toward a suggestion of something like the Dead Internet theory, is almost a miracle. Plays hardly come as astutely, or productions as perceptive as this – and rarely anyone as brilliantly as Squibb.

‍Marjorie Prime is in performance through February 15, 2025 at the Hayes Theatre on West 44th Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.