Premiere of Pulitzer-finalist play at Olney
In Marjorie Prime, a play that was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize, Kathleen Butler (as Marjorie), interacts with a life-like “hologram” of her late husband (played by Michael Glenn) as he was at the age of 30. The futuristic play, a regional premiere, continues at Olney Theatre through April 10.
Photo by Nicholas Griner
Marjorie Prime at the Olney Theater Center is a strange, gripping and ultimately touching play. Is is set in the future, and looks at how we remember the past to keep going in the present.
The play gets underway as Marjorie, an 85-year-old woman nearing dementia, is having a perfectly reasonable conversation with her deceased husband, who is sitting across from her as he appeared at the age of 30. They’re trying to remember the kind of September, October, etc. they shared together.
We are in the future, and hubby Walter is sitting there as a more-or-less living, breathing, three-dimensional hologram. Walter is what is known in the play as a Prime — a computer-generated representation that only “remembers” that which he is primed to recall by Marjorie’s daughter and son-in-law.
Soon, a formerly crotchety Marjorie herself passes into the great unknown, and then is regenerated through “a few zillion pixels” into another Prime, as she sweetly hopes to be told the way she was. A third Prime comes on the scene later.
A familiar future
Among other poignant things, the 80-minute, no intermission dramedy, a 2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist, explores memory — its loss, repression and wishful embellishment — in ways that remind us how important the perceived past is in how we shape our current selves.
Marjorie Prime runs in its regional premiere through April 10 in Olney Center’s Mulitz-Gudelsky Theater Lab, off Sandy Spring Road in Olney.
Performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 7:45 p.m., with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 1:45 p.m. There is also a Wednesday March 30 matinee at 1:45 p.m. Tickets are priced at $38 to $65, with a $5 discount for those age 65 and older.
Post-show discussions will be held March 26 and April 9 after the matinee performances.
