‘MARJORIE PRIME’: June Squbb. Photo: Joan Marcus.

MARJORIE PRIME
By Jordan Harrison
Directed by Anne Kauffman
Through February 15, 2026
Second Stage at the Hayes Theater
240 West 44th Street
https://2st.com/shows/marjorie-prime
 

By Scott Harrah

AI (artificial intelligence) is everywhere in our lives in the 21st century. Despite all its hype, many contend that AI cannot truly replicate humans—human emotion in particular. Or can it? This is one of many thought‑provoking questions playwright Jordan Harrison poses in the sublime Broadway revival of his 2014 science‑fiction drama, Marjorie Prime.

The play takes place in the not‑too‑distant future, about 37 years from now, in 2062. Marjorie (Oscar nominee June Squibb) is an 85‑year‑old widow experiencing memory issues. Lonely and still coping with the loss of her husband Walter, she is introduced by her family to a “Prime”—a high‑tech AI projection designed to mimic her late spouse. Primes are not robots, but advanced technological recreations that look, speak, and sound human. The play opens with Marjorie in conversation with Walter, revisiting fragments of their shared past.

Blast from the past

Marjorie pours her heart out to the Prime, recalling memories in bits and pieces. The Prime absorbs these recollections and helps her refine and reorganize her thoughts about life with Walter. But are these memories truly fixed? Can they be edited, altered, or even erased altogether?

At the center of this debate are Marjorie’s middle‑aged daughter Tess (Cynthia Nixon) and son‑in‑law Jon (Danny Burstein), who approach the Prime from opposing emotional viewpoints. Tess worries about the psychological toll of her mother bonding with a technological stand‑in for a deceased spouse, while Jon sees the Prime as a compassionate solution to Marjorie’s loneliness. These conflicting perspectives generate a steady undercurrent of tension throughout the play’s brief 85‑minute running time.

Parable about humanity & technology?

On the surface, Marjorie Prime may resemble an ethical parable about humanity and technology. While that theme is certainly present, Harrison’s play is ultimately more concerned with aging, grief, and how families process loss. The differing perspectives of Marjorie, Tess, and Jon lend the story a sustained sense of dramatic tension, raising questions about memory, truth, and the ways humans adapt—emotionally and morally—to rapidly advancing technology.

June Squibb & Cynthia Nixon shine

June Squibb, at age 96, has received understandable media attention for being one of the oldest actors to perform on Broadway, but it is her commanding stage presence and remarkably fluid approach to Marjorie that make her performance so compelling. With apparent ease, Squibb pivots between wit and cantankerousness, irritation and moments of forgetfulness, allowing each emotional shift to feel organic and unforced. She not only brings Marjorie vividly to life but also strengthens the performances around her.

Cynthia Nixon delivers one of her strongest stage performances to date. She brings sharp emotional clarity to Tess, grounding the play’s futuristic premise in recognizable human anguish. Ms. Nixon captures Tess’s anger, vulnerability, and deep emotional fatigue, particularly in scenes shaped by grief and unresolved memory. Her tightly coiled anxiety stands in sharp contrast to Marjorie’s more easygoing temperament.

Danny Burstein & Christopher Lowell

Danny Burstein offers a warm, grounded performance as Jon, Tess’s husband, approaching the role with empathy and restraint. He allows Jon’s quiet frustration to surface naturally, giving the character a relatable humanity. Together with Squibb and Nixon, Burstein helps anchor the play’s emotional stakes.

Completing the ensemble, Christopher Lowell strikes a careful balance as Walter Prime. He suggests warmth and familiarity while maintaining a subtly unsettling emotional distance, reinforcing the character’s artificial nature without tipping into caricature.

Dynamic direction

Director Anne Kauffman skillfully guides the ensemble, allowing each performance to register clearly while maintaining tonal balance. She never lets the drama drift into sentimentality or melodrama, keeping the production emotionally resonant yet controlled.

Marjorie Prime is a provocative and deeply affecting play, and one of the year’s best. It speaks thoughtfully to the accelerating presence of AI in modern life and humanity’s uncertain ability to keep up with it. The play ultimately suggests that emerging technologies need not be inherently frightening; they may someday help shape how we choose to remember our lives—and one another.

Published December 15, 2025
Reviewed at press performance on December 11, 2025

‘MARJORIE PRIME’: June Squbb & Cynthia Nixon. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘MARJORIE PRIME’: Christopher Lowell & June Squibb. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘MARJORIE PRIME’: Danny Burstein & Cynthia Nixon. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘MARJORIE PRIME’: Christopher Lowell. Photo: Joan Marcus.

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‘THE LITTLE FOXES’: Laura Linney & Darren Goldstein. Photo: Joan Marcus

THE LITTLE FOXES
Written by Lillian Hellman
Directed by Daniel Sullivan
Through July 2, 2017
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th Street
(212-239-6200),www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com

By Scott Harrah

Greed is the primary deadly sin among the many that run rampant in Manhattan Theatre Club’s brilliant revival of Lillian Hellman’s most enduring play The Little Foxes. There is jasmine in the air, mint in the juleps and backstabbing at every turn in this tale of the Deep South. Cotton is king and the family plays each other as pawns to get the biggest share from the ill-gotten gains.

The Little Foxes is Ms. Hellman’s most accessible drama because it is so intricately constructed, timeless, and a classic. The show was first produced on Broadway in 1939 with Tallulah Bankhead, and has featured everyone from Elizabeth Taylor and Anne Bancroft to Stockard Channing over the years. This outstanding revival showcases Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon, alternating the roles of Regina Giddens and Birdie Hubbard with the “blue” cast (Ms. Linney as Regina) and “green” cast (Ms. Nixon as Regina). It’s a winning gimmick indeed (this review is of a performance with Ms. Linney as Regina and Ms. Nixon as Birdie), but the true beauty of the show is how Ms. Hellman’s story holds up nearly 80 years after it was first mounted. Greed and family dysfunction have not changed much since 1900 Alabama (when the play is set).

This Southern Gothic tale is set in a small Alabama town, centering on the struggle for controlling a family business. Regina Hubbard is a formidable villainess, a woman wanting to gain financial control of her life because her ailing husband Horace (Richard Thomas) is in a Baltimore hospital with a heart condition and she must rely on him for money. Meanwhile, her brothers Oscar (Darren Goldstein) and Ben (Michael McKean) live well off the inheritance from their father and his profitable plantation and cotton fields, with money made off the backs of low-paid African-American workers.

The brothers want to build a new cotton mill and they ask Regina for money (an additional $75,000), but she has to get the funds from her sick husband Horace. The three-act drama has a riveting narrative filled with family machinations as we see the lengths the family goes to due to their avarice, including suggesting a marriage between first cousins Leo (Michael Benz) and Alexandra (Francesca Carpanini).

Birdie Hubbard (a role alternated in this production by Ms. Linney and Ms. Nixon) is the alcoholic wife of Oscar. She’s a delicate flower indeed, physically abused by her husband, dependent on his wealth, with a penchant for elderberry wine and clinging to the fading gentility of the old South. In the “blue” cast, Ms. Nixon’s portrayal of Birdie is haunting and heartbreaking.

The show is flawlessly directed, designed and acted. Laura Linney as Regina is evil incarnate, and Cynthia as Birdie Huddard, Regina’s sister-in-law, is the charm that was the South. The production is ably supported by Michael McKean and Darren Goldstein as Regina’s conniving brothers. Richard Thomas as her husband Horace is simply wonderful. Caroline Stefanie Clay as maid Addie, and Francesca Carpanini, as Alexandra, are also noteworthy. This is a play that resonates today as it did in 1939 when it was first presented. The Little Foxes, directed by Daniel Sullivan, is one of the year’s best revivals.

Edited by David NouNou
Published April 24, 2017
Reviewed at press performance on April 23, 2017

‘THE LITTLE FOXES’: (left to right) Francesca Carpanini as Alexandra & Laura Linney as Regina. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE LITTLE FOXES’: Laura Linney as Regina. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE LITTLE FOXES’: Cynthia Nixon as Birdie & Francesca Carpanini as Alexandra. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE LITTLE FOXES’: Darren Goldstein & Michael Benz. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE LITTLE FOXES’: Richard Thomas & Caroline Stephanie Clay. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE LITTLE FOXES’: Michael McKean. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE LITTLE FOXES’: Darren Goldstein. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘THE LITTLE FOXES’ (Green Company): Cynthia Nixon as Regina & Laura Linney as Birdie. The two actresses alternate the roles at certain performances. Photo: Joan Marcus

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SCOTTISH STAR AS ERUDITE PLAYWRIGHT: Ewan McGregor in Tom Stoppard’s ‘The Real Thing.’ Photo: Joan Marcus

THE REAL THING
Written by Tom Stoppard
Directed by Sam Gold
Through January 4, 2015
American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd Street
(212-719-1300), www.RoundaboutTheatre.org

By David NouNou

Although Tom Stoppard is not the easiest playwright to sit through, one must give him credit for being one of the most erudite dramatists ever. Certainly The Real Thing is a perfect example of how his mind works and his beliefs on the complexities of marriage and infidelity and, as presented on Broadway in January 1984, under the superb direction of Mike Nichols, one got to see the guts and the marrow of broken marriages, infidelity, passion, love, betrayal and guilt. However, director Sam Gold  has stripped the heart and soul of this show, as he did to another British import, the 2012 revival of John Osborne’s Look Back In Anger at the Laura Pels Theatre. Mr. Gold’s obsession with free form, non-grounded, minimalistic sets where “not just less but much less is more” is absolutely maddening. After all, the play was first done in England in 1982 and showed intellectual, well-to-do playwrights/characters in the play in their natural habitat of posh flats.

As if the play and its settings aren’t confusing enough, Mr. Gold and his set designer David Zinn have added another layer of “where are we now and what year is it?” to Stoppard’s play to make it almost incomprehensible. Adding doo-wop songs between scene changes, sung by the actors, leaves the audience at a loss for words.

Starting out are Charlotte (Cynthia Nixon) and Max (Josh Hamilton), a married couple having a to-do over the fact that she has gone to Geneva without her passport. This starts a row between the couple in which Charlotte leaves Max. This is followed by a doo-wop songfest in which the actors come on and rearrange the set and the lights come on Charlotte and Henry (Ewan McGregor). In this scene. we learn that Charlotte and Max were doing a scene from Henry’s latest play, House of Cards. On this particular Sunday, Max and his wife, Annie, another actress (Maggie Gyllenhaal), are visiting Henry and Charlotte. They are all friends in real life. However, in this life, it is Henry and Annie who are having the passionate love affair. Needless to say, the scene ends on a down note, but the director has his actors going into another doo-wop scene change.

This time Annie and Henry are living a blissful, passionate life, Max is wallowing in his sorrow and Annie is getting pleasure out of his misery and is totally okay with it. They do love each other; Henry has the usual writer’s block and things start going south. Another scene change, more doo-wops, Annie starts getting antsy and has an affair with a much younger fellow actor. This is where life imitates art; it is Henry who is jealous and has to keep his covetousness in tow, for he desperately loves Annie and, as she explains to him, “I love you, too, and you are my chap.”

Mr. McGregor and Ms. Gyllenhaal are movie stars who are making their Broadway debuts here. Ms. Nixon and Mr. Hamilton are seasoned theatrical actors, all four of them have theatrical experience and are pros in their field and add marquee value, but together they totally lack any chemistry. They deliver their lines devoid of any real feeling or the motivations behind them. If only Mr. Gold could have confined them in a real setting where they didn’t have to break character and waste time changing sets and do all those damn doo-wops and instead tried to elicit some genuine emotions from them, it would have made a far more interesting and enjoyable evening and made Mr. Stoppard’s work a pleasure to sit through.

TROUBLED COUPLE: Cynthia Nixon & Ewan McGregor in Tom Stoppard’s ‘The Real Thing.’ Photo: Joan Marcus

NIXON’S SECOND TIME IN SHOW: Cynthia Nixon (left) played young Debbie in the 1984 production of ‘The Real Thing’ & returns as Charlotte, seen here with playwright Henry (Ewan McGregor) in the latest Broadway revival of the show. Photo: Joan Marcus

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published November 6, 2014
Reviewed at press performance on November 5, 2014

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