Theater turns out to be a perfect medium to explore artificial intelligence, as Northern Stage demonstrates in its premiere of Matthew Libby’s Sisters. The bold staging of a stimulating script proves that both breathtaking spectacle and intimate intensity can emerge from the emotional weight of two characters, talking. One of them is a computer bot; the other, her lifelong human companion. It’s an acting masterwork that unspools effortlessly and never stops surprising.
Matilda is 6 when her father tells her that she has a sister. Greta is a voice coming from the computer in Matilda’s father’s office, a cluttered room where a computer scientist can litter every surface and a kid can spin in his swivel chair. Matilda is the only character we see, but even as a disembodied voice, Greta is a presence onstage. The play tells two life stories as Matilda ages from 6 to 96, always interacting with the AI sister her father created to be her companion after her mother died.
Events are shown out of chronological order, the better to convey the abrupt turns in a long life. Viewers can stop to notice the exceptional acting demands of the play, but the neatly built story is so captivating that it’s easy to become lost in it.
Sisters is a way of looking at human perception, memory and connection.
Matilda is alone onstage, but every scene is a partnership. Jihan Haddad, as Matilda, produces all the play’s physicality, including the quick changes between scenes to launch into a different age and emotional state. Offstage, Madeleine Barker has only her voice to create Greta and a monitor to observe Haddad. The actors can’t connect physically, but what’s subtracted intensifies their work. Director Aileen Wen McGroddy establishes such a strong relationship between them that every beat in the play is built together.
Sisters is a way of looking at human perception, memory and connection. Greta, a creation of compiled code, is also a creation of her sister’s experience. The voice is real, but at times it is both inside and outside Matilda’s head. This lifelong conversation is constructed from the most human impulses, but it is not between two humans. Can Greta evolve? Can the sisters lie to each other? What can a computer know, or feel? How can their connection be called love? How can it not be?
Libby isn’t offering a political dissection of AI’s place in society. While the play doesn’t explore computers replacing human creativity or intelligence, it does examine our ability to project human attributes onto a computer that responds in language. Because it is extremely difficult to imagine language forming without a brain, we feel we’re observing two beings.
The script is a beautiful machine itself, operating on three levels. One is a story of connection: As sisters, Matilda and Greta are never alone, a relationship that enriches them both but also allows them to hurt each other. A second layer is about isolation: Matilda’s perceptions have a quality of internal self-talk, and directing them to a computer companion doesn’t prevent loneliness; it may even magnify it. The third focuses attention on the emotional essence of being human: AI is just close enough to human intelligence to reveal the contrast between technology that simulates feeling and the ineffable quality of human emotion.
This production may give the playwright ideas for revision, perhaps smoothing out the long exploration of Greta’s lack of a body when her essential dilemma is artificiality itself. The ending is riveting, but the build is a little slow. Still, the play is already capable of transfixing an audience. Last Thursday’s performance was packed with young people discovering theater’s vitality.
Haddad has all the physical burden of a one-woman show, onstage the full 90-minute run time. The craft of sustaining an entire performance, always working with nowhere to hide, is impressive. It takes skill, but it shouldn’t be mistaken for art in itself — Haddad’s stamina is nothing compared to her nuanced portrayal. She never overdoes the markers of age but always delivers specific qualities, from the 6-year-old’s unruffled acceptance of novelty to the maturity-in-progress at 23 to the reflectiveness of 96. Haddad makes interior thoughts exceptionally clear and keeps the character startling and open to emotion.
Barker performs live from a sound booth backstage. The plot indicates Greta’s evolution, but it’s up to Barker to show change through her voice. Greta’s computer voice starts with the elongated vowels of fake enthusiasm, proceeds to the droning effect of not-quite-right vocal stresses and finally achieves the richness of convincing conversation. Beyond producing a bot’s voice, Barker creates a character far deeper than synthesized sound. She uses rhythm and pauses to express reactions to Matilda; by the end of the play, Greta’s voice after 90 years has astonishing resonance.
Northern Stage has the technical resources to enhance the play, though the script could succeed with austere staging. The set, music, lighting and special effects that scenic designer Tatiana Kahvegian, lighting designer Jennifer Fok and sound/media designer Alek Deva supply make Sisters a visual and auditory wonder.
Theater is spatial, and this production uses the viewer’s sense of scale and distance. The set expands and contracts as lighting illuminates or darkens its extent. As we watch in a large, shared space, the play shrinks to the dot of a single woman and swoops outward to the vastness of a huge screen on what feels like a limitless back wall. The text’s consideration of infinity is realized in space — the play becomes a visceral experience.
The most overwhelming moment uses story and stage effects to make us feel, in our bones, the horror of deep loneliness. Sisters is a reflection on being human, being alone and being connected, but it operates emotionally, reaching viewers through the heart as well as the mind.
Connecting Art and Tech With Greta 2.0
Northern Stage offers audiences an interactive experience with the technology that is the subject of Sisters. In the lobby, a computer is available for audience members to type remarks and see responses from an AI bot. Greta 2.0 is based on the character in Matthew Libby’s play. The program was developed by the students and staff of the Digital Applied Learning and Innovation (DALI) Lab at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., in partnership with Northern Stage.
Greta 2.0 has learned the play’s script and other related materials and speaks from the perspective of the character. Audience members can chat and experience the feeling of conversing with a sentient being. The bot is customized for this production and not trained on generalized data, politely steering conversations away from wide-ranging questions that aren’t in its training.
While Greta 2.0 won’t be provoked or trade insults, it will respond with calm authority about the experiences of the character. I chatted a bit before and after the show and can attest that the responses truly seem to come from a specific, thoughtful mind. Try it out to see if Greta 2.0 makes you feel connected or uncomfortable in exchanges with artificial intelligence.
On Thursday, October 10, Northern Stage will host Tech Affinity Night, a free gathering with refreshments before the 7:30 p.m. performance of Sisters. The theater welcomes people connected with the tech community to mingle and chat.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Bot-Body Connection | Theater review: Sisters, Northern Stage”
This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2024.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
