And Then We Were No More, a new play set in a future that feels a bit too near, includes a scene in which a Lawyer (Elizabeth Marvel) attempts to persuade a large jury to spare her client’s life. The Official (Scott Shepherd) in charge protests: The only purpose of this proceeding is to determine the method by which the condemned woman, known as the Inmate (Elizabeth Yeoman), will eventually be put to death. The Lawyer perseveres, questioning the court’s logic and the state’s motives, but when she requests permission to refer to the Inmate by her actual name, she is sharply rebuked for trying to sway the jury with irrelevant emotions like empathy and compassion. As stand-ins for the jury, the audience is likewise barred from knowing not only the convict’s name, but also those of the Lawyer, the Official or anyone else.
And Then We Were No More | Photograph: Courtesy Bronwen Sharp
Playwright Tim Blake Nelson—who is also a novelist, a filmmaker and one of the Coen brothers’ favorite actors—has synthesized more than a century’s worth of ideas from dystopian fiction into a chilly, talky two hours of nameless people in a soulless system. Directed by Mark Wing-Davey, it wears its influences on its sleeve: Kafka, Orwell, Philip K. Dick (Nelson appeared in the film Minority Report, which was based on one of Dick’s stories) and Caryl Churchill, whose work Wing-Davey has directed on several occasions. Marvel’s Lawyer has grudgingly come to terms with her irrelevance in this world, in which machines assign people to jobs, record everything they do and eliminate those who threaten the social order. At first, she wants nothing to do with a case whose resolution seems settled; but upon meeting the Inmate, whose crime is undeniably horrific, her resignation is replaced by a renewed sense of purpose—a notion that there might be a glitch in the matrix that, if exploited, could to bring it to a halt.
And Then We Were No More | Photograph: Courtesy Bronwen Sharp
As one might expect from a legal drama by a writer whose previous works include a play about Socrates, And Then We Were No More has several scenes of characters debating crime, punishment and human nature. In lesser hands, these dialogues might overstay their welcome, but Obie winners Marvel and Shepherd once again demonstrate the intelligence and clarity that have made them favorites among serious theatergoers, and Henry Stram has a memorable turn as the Machinist, who spends much of the play on the sidelines but in the second act emerges at the center of a truly disquieting twist. These performances play out on a set by David Meyer that straddles the line between futuristic and retro, like the text, but blunts the drama’s impact with too many swiveling walls and cool-looking but functionless attachments.
And Then We Were No More | Photograph: Courtesy Bronwen Sharp
And Then There Were No More feels both familiar and unexpected. More than the sum of its parts, it asks provocative questions about where we’re headed and whether it’s possible to change course—and whether, if we could, we would even want to. The play is hard to love but even harder to dismiss. Its interrogation of the ghost in the machine may leave you feeling haunted.
And Then We Were No More. La MaMa (Off Broadway). By Tim Blake Nelson. Directed by Mark Wing-Davey. With Elizabeth Marvel, Scott Shepherd, Elizabeth Yeoman, Henry Stram, Jennifer Mogbock. Running time: 2hrs. One intermission.
And Then We Were No More | Photograph: Courtesy Bronwen Sharp
