MARJORIE PRIME Reviews

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 7:19pm

9:30 PM embargo lift.

Updated On: 12/8/25 at 07:19 PM

[Fordham2015]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 9:36pm

Critic's Pick from Vincentelli (gift link)

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/theater/marjorie-prime-review-june-squibb.html

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 9:47pm

B from Entertainment Weekly

Marjorie Prime review: June Squibb stars in a sci-fi family drama with more questions than emotions

The Pulitzer Prize-nominated play features Squibb in a history-making Broadway role.

https://ew.com/marjorie-prime-review-broadway-june-squibb-11863980

"For all the grief boiling over in Marjorie Prime, I walked away yearning to be more thoroughly wounded. But Harrison's script is less interested in piercing the heart than it is the mind. It's much too busy prodding at the bounds of humanity. What makes us who we are? How much can we rely on technology? Can it soothe us, numb us, replace us completely? Marjorie Prime offers few clear-cut answers, but does make one thing clear: There is no replacement for the power of human love and connection. And the absence of that is what keeps this show from truly leaving a mark on its crowd. Grade: B"

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 9:48pm

Theatrely is positive.

June Squibb Finds Post-AI Humanity in MARJORIE PRIME — Review

https://www.theatrely.com/post/june-squibb-finds-post-ai-humanity-in-marjorie-prime----review

"Lowell ably fuses the tender warmth for which his character has been created with the icy distance of its reality. Burstein radiates an empathy that grows as his character must navigate murkier emotional realities. Nixon, as always, is extremely skilled at portraying women long backed into a hardened corner – equal parts their own steely volition and as a result of the world’s apathy – but with a bittersweet warmth at this knowledge.

At the center of this, even as the story cleverly shifts focus, is Squibb and her masterfully expressive face. In contrast to her younger costars, the veteran often plays out towards the audience, finding her light somewhere between our hearts and minds; this is someone who understands the art of stage performance. Her organic turns between girlish glee and instantly heartbreaking anguish are genuinely staggering."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 9:50pm

The Wrap's Hofler seems unimpressed

‘Marjorie Prime’ Broadway Review: Cynthia Nixon and June Squibb Make the Case for Everybody Becoming a Robot

Jordan Harrison’s sci-fi tale about robots that help people grieve receives its first Broadway production

https://www.thewrap.com/marjorie-prime-broadway-review-cynthia-nixon-and-june-squibb-make-the-case-for-everybody-becoming-a-robot/

"two performances in this revival throw off the play’s take on what’s most different about people and robots.

The real Marjorie is a very bright, edgy, opinionated woman, and that’s the way Lois Smith played her in the movie and the 2015 stage production. When the character dies, her daughter, Tess, turns Marjorie into a prime. Suddenly, now that Tess’ mother is a robot, she is a caring, wonderful, non-messy creature. Smith played two very different creatures. Squibb does not. She’s perfectly nice and charming as a robot, but she is never that much of a pill as a house-bound octogenarian widow with a failing memory. In fact, her human Marjorie is downright cute, the archetypal cuddly and adorable old lady who suffers only that one unfortunate bathroom call."

(then complains about Burstein being too cute)

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 9:51pm

The Guardian

Three stars

Marjorie Prime review – Cynthia Nixon steals sad, and spotty, sci-fi revival

The return of the 2014 play, now starring June Squibb as an octogenarian using a tech program to speak to her dead husband, veers between poetry and cliche

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/dec/08/marjorie-prime-cynthia-nixon-review

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 9:53pm

4 stars out of 4 from NYP

‘Marjorie Prime’ review: June Squibb is a marvel in an early highlight of the Broadway season

https://nypost.com/2025/12/08/entertainment/marjorie-prime-review-96-year-old-june-squibb-is-a-marvel-in-an-early-highlight-of-the-broadway-season/

"Much in the same way Squibb has only gotten finer with age, so too has Harrison’s complex 11-year-old play about artificial intelligence, its possibilities and the deeply intrusive role it could have — hell, it already does — in our own lives. "

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 9:55pm

Holden in Vulture is lukewarm

Return of the Replicants: ‘Marjorie Prime’

Marjorie Prime, starring June Squibb, Cynthia Nixon, and Danny Burstein, is a thoughtful, well-wrought play and production that's a little too cool to the

https://www.vulture.com/article/return-of-the-replicants-marjorie-prime.html

"In our present reality, with the floodwaters of AI slop licking at the rolled cuffs of our pants, it’s a pretty sure bet that Second Stage’s elegant revival of Harrison’s play will be applauded for its (then) prescience and (now) timeliness. Yet watching Marjorie Prime — staged on Lee Jellinek’s set of crisp angles, with its green hues engineered for tranquility, by Anne Kauffman, who directs with spare, delicate rigor, as if she’s conducting Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel — I kept waiting to feel … well, more. More rapt, more heartbroken, more rattled by the harrowing questions presented by the long, slow, terribly seductive suicide humanity seems bent on carrying out via technology. Harrison is a formidable craftsman and Marjorie Prime is built very well, but in a way it resembles one of its own artificial humans: It’s an extremely palatable version of the thing. It has studied how to be a play, and it’s a good one — if only the feeling of study weren’t quite so palpable in that goodness."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 10:00pm

Two five star reviews from NY Stage Review

Marjorie Prime: The Future is Now

By Frank Scheck

★★★★★ June Squibb, Cynthia Nixon and Danny Burstein in this Broadway revival of Jordan Harrison's sci-fi-tinged drama.

https://nystagereview.com/2025/12/08/marjorie-prime-the-future-is-now/

 

Marjorie Prime: A Very Real Exploration of Memory and Loss, Powered by AI

By Melissa Rose Bernardo

★★★★★ A superb cast of four anchors Jordan Harrison’s future-set drama

https://nystagereview.com/2025/12/08/marjorie-prime-a-very-real-exploration-of-memory-and-loss-powered-by-ai/

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 10:03pm

TimeOut

Review: Marjorie Prime

4 out of 5 stars

Jordan Harrison's moving AI drama returns for a timely revival with June Squibb and Cynthia Nixon

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/marjorie-prime-broadway-revival-review-june-squibb-cynthia-nixon-jordan-harrison-danny-burstein-artifical-intelligence-ai

"Much of the pre-opening press about this revival has revolved around the 96-year-old Squibb, who might be the oldest actor ever to play a principal role on Broadway. She merits that attention with a remarkable performance that combines frostiness and fogginess into a firm coat of rime. But the other actors are equally good. Burstein, who radiates human tenderness, is perfectly employed as the play’s kindest character, and his final scene is devastating; Lowell finds the appropriate levels of stiffness and charm for his faux Walter. And Nixon is simply the best I’ve ever seen her onstage: As Tess labors to connect with her mother—or alternatively to give up any hope of connecting with her—Nixon invests her testiness with complex underlying notes of bitterness and exhaustion."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 10:06pm

Daily Beast

June Squibb, 96, Delivers Acting Tour de Force in ‘Marjorie Prime’

https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/june-squibb-96-delivers-acting-tour-de-force-in-marjorie-prime/

"Squibb’s Majorie contains multitudes, and Squibb shows them all so tangibly and without airs that her character feels recognizably real right from the beginning of the play. She may be ailing, but in Squibb’s compelling rendering—under Anne Kauffman’s fine, sensitive direction—we see that Marjorie is not to be wrapped in cotton wool or patronized."

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 11:17pm

I had no idea this was made into a movie.

[KevinKlawitter]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 11:40pm

TotallyEffed said: "I hadnoidea this was made into a movie."

It's pretty good! Lois Smith reprises her role as Marjorie from the original stage production and it expands the story a bit (flashbacks, revised dialogue during the final scene, etc). I'd recommend checking it out if you like the play.

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 12/8/25 at 11:55pm

DTLI Consensus: The 96-year old June Squibb feels very much in her Prime in this well-acted and prescient AI-themed play making a long-awaited Broadway bow.

9 positive (including the NYT), 5 mixed.

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/marjorie-prime/