Mostly because of cost, I’ve never been a theatergoer despite living in NYC, but I have to say that Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime, which meditates on AI and memory and how the two interact and inform us, seems like my worlds colliding. Or at least my thoughts. Another one of the dramatist’s “cerebral playgrounds,” as they were described in 2008. Michael Almereyda, a really thoughtful filmmaker I interviewed at the time of his excellent documentary about photographer William Eggleston, is currently adapting the play for the big screen. Two excerpts from reviews of the Playwrights Horizon production follow.

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From Ben Brantley in the New York Times:

Walter is Marjorie’s husband. Or, rather, he is the exact image of Marjorie’s husband (and Tess’s father), now deceased, as he was some 60 years earlier. Walter is what is called a Prime, the latest device for helping people whose memories are fading, as Marjorie’s definitely is. As Jon says of Walter, “It’s amazing what they can do with a few zillion pixels.”

Primes like Walter, provided by a company called Senior Serenity, are given the outward form that best suits the individual they are created to assist. Then they are fed, word by word, with data about the life of that individual and her (or his) relationship with the person who has been simulated. The recollections that Primes salvage and store are only as accurate and complete as those of the human beings who feed them information.

I think that’s more or less right. Mr. Harrison doesn’t work with such blunt blocks of exposition, but by indirection. The tomorrow he envisions — a bit like that of George Saunders’s sci-fi-flavored short stories — is one that its residents take for granted, and we infer its details gradually by listening to them, the way we might pick up a foreign language.

These people remain people like us, though. A technologically smoother universe hasn’t ironed out classic familial discords and distances or the uncomfortable questions of existence posed when those we love are transformed by age almost beyond recognition. As Jon says to Tess, who has qualms about using the Prime for Marjorie, “How much does she have to forget before she’s not your mom anymore?”

All the humans in this play — which unfolds in a fluid series of naturalistic conversations — wind up feeling reservations about Primes. Yes, these replicants comfort, but in limited and perhaps dangerous ways.•

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From Jesse Green at Vulture:

Walter is a “prime”: a holographic companion customized by a company called Senior Serenity to offer Marjorie comfort and encouragement. “A few zillion pixels” make him appear to be the youthful Walter that Marjorie most wants to see; presumably Marjorie’s daughter, Tess, and son-in-law, Jon, have provided the necessary photographs to feed the illusion. They have also provided the necessary biographical and psychological data, which through the self-improving algorithms of artificial intelligence, and instantaneous access to the world’s knowledge base in the ether, have by the time of the play’s action brought Walter Prime so close to Walter that Marjorie often forgets he’s a simulacrum. So do we, except that in some ways he’s better than a real spouse: When not in use, he sits pleasantly on a sofa, smiling and ready and silent.

The year is 2062 — not so far in the future as it may seem. (Toddlers today will just be pushing 50 then, and Harrison himself, like Marjorie, will be 85.) Likewise, the prime technology isn’t a far leap from the chatbots and virtual-reality holography already in use. The play subtly yet assiduously closes any expected emotional gap as well: Daughters still struggle with their mothers; mothers still flirt with doctors; everyone still grieves as the losses pile up. (The primes are not just for the elderly but for anyone craving the companionship of a departed loved one.) It is a wholly recognizable world — a “prime” of ours, if you will; even though the sterile environment in which Marjorie lives is wired to play Vivaldi at the mere mention of his name, Vivaldi is still being played. (And Jif peanut butter is still being preferred to the natural kind.) The point is that this is not science fiction: “Science fiction is here,” says Tess, who has trouble warming to Walter Prime as a pseudo-father. “Every day is science fiction.”•