Marjorie Prime

At Waterfront Theatre to July 1, 2022
Tickets from $25 at ensembletheatrecompany.ca

Posted June 23, 2022

I’m not much into speculative fiction, avatars, AI or the like so I figured Marjorie Prime would be a challenge. It was. My guest, a Black Mirror fan, was more impressed than I. In fact, the morning after the evening we saw the show she remarked, on reconsidering the play, she had been really moved by the conclusion. Me, not so much. That being said, Jordan Harrison’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated play raises fascinating issues around dementia, memory and our use of technology.

So who is or was Marjorie Prime? Marjorie, at 85, is the widow of Walter, mother of Tess and mother-in-law of Jon. It’s the future, Walter died years ago, Marjorie – in the half-light of dementia – is lonely, fearful and a bit of a handful for Tess and Jon with whom she has moved in. And her surname is not Prime. “Prime” is a computerized flesh-and-blood robotic version of the deceased Walter who has been programmed to keep Marjorie company. At Marjorie’s insistence (I think), Walter Prime is in his 30s – the handsome young man who stole Marjorie’s heart when she was a young, talented violinist. She was being wooed by another – who never, despite her marriage to Walter, stopped writing to her. There are boxes of letters from the mysterious tennis pro Jean-Paul.

Walter Prime remembers Toni, the family dog, but there are limits to what he knows. He has to be programmed and now and again says, “I’m afraid I don’t have that information.” Nevertheless, Marjorie is proud that she is keeping up with technology and she whiles away the hours reminiscing with Walter’s stand-in.

Walter Prime is not the only “Prime” in the play; at the risk of a spoiler, I’ll stop there.

Memory is a slippery thing: highly selective and unreliable. Would it be better to trust a computer, programmed with the actual events of our life, to accompany us to the grave? Just the good bits? Or all of it? Are we, in the end, just a collection of our memories?

Playwright Harrison teases us with these notions and the performers put flesh on the bones of his enquiries. Gai Brown is the sometimes cranky, sometimes fretful, sometimes flirtatiously girlish Marjorie who spars with Walter Prime, played by Carlen Escarraga, a younger Justin Trudeau lookalike. Bronwen Smith is Tess who has demons of her own especially when it comes to her mother and Tariq Leslie is Jon on whom all the demons come to rest by the end of the play.

Here’s a couple of cheery lines to tantalize you: “Living is a distraction from death. Is that what you believe?”

Directed by Shelby Bushell for Ensemble Theatre Company as part of ETC’s two-play festival, strong performances and an interesting idea make Marjorie Prime worth a visit – especially if, like Marjorie, you’re keeping up with and curious about where technology is taking us. Frankly, I don’t think the future is all that friendly.