The persistence of memory

Evelyn C. McDonald
Arts & Culture Reporter
March 22, 2017 11:35 a.m.

Hats off to Studio 209 at the Amelia Community Theatre. Once again, they have taken on a small play and made it blossom.

“Marjorie Prime” is set in a future where we can have programmed holograms that learn and repeat our memories to us when our own brains fail. It debuted in 2015 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama that year. The following year it was awarded the 2016 Horton Foote Prize for an Outstanding New American Play. It’s been made into a movie that was shown at the Sundance Film Festival. The author, Jordan Harrison, is also a writer on the Netflix TV series, “Orange Is The New Black.”
There’s a fine line between discussing this play and giving away too much for anyone who will be going to see it this weekend. I will try to toe that line carefully because the play unfolds in ways I didn’t expect.

As the play opens, we meet Marjorie. She is 85 and her memories come and go. She has a hologram representation of her husband Walter, probably as he was in his mid-40s. Walter Prime has been fed memories by Marjorie’s son-in-law and can relate those memories back to her. He also asks her about her memories so that he can acquire more of her background. We then see the interaction between Marjorie and her daughter, Tess, and Tess’s husband, John.

At that point, the play took a direction I wasn’t expecting and one I will not discuss because it would be a spoiler. Suffice it to say that a play I thought was going to be about aging and loss turned out to have a lot more to say. For me, its major theme is about memories.

There are two aspects to memories broached in the play. We may be unaware of the accuracy of our memories. We may have intentionally or accidently edited those memories. We may lose bits of memory and be generally unaware that we’ve done so.

The second aspect concerns the value of memories. The hologram will retrieve any memory without necessarily judging its value or effect. We may forget a painful memory which can be an asset. These questions are just part of what the play explores. It leaves the audience to make their own judgments.
The cast did a great job in making the characters believable, even as the hologram. There was emotion and intensity amid old grievances and fond memories. Director Tenor Wade has put together a great evening of theatre.

Be advised. This is not “The Sound of Music.” It’s a thought-provoking excursion but one that I think it’s well worth your taking. The play continues March 23-25.

Evelyn McDonald moved to Fernandina Beach from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. in 2006. She is a chair of Arts & Culture Nassau, a city commission charged with support of the arts in Nassau County. She serves on FSCJ’s Curriculum Committee for the Center for Lifelong Learning. She is also the chair of the Dean’s Council for the Carpenter Library at the UNF. Ms. McDonald has MS in Technology Management from the University of Maryland’s University College and a BA in Spanish from the University of Michigan.