Sisters: Not Just About The Bot

At Northern Stage through October 20

The AI is interesting but not necessarily the heart of the story.

Apart from the title, the first thing you learn about the play, Sisters, now showing at Northern Stage, is that one of the sisters, Greta, is actually a bot, created and sustained through artificial intelligence. Which might cause you to think the play is weird and sci-fi-ish (spoiler: it isn’t). To be sure, there are dramatic sight and sound effects on stage that effectively evoke the brave new world wrought by computers. And Greta’s voice in the beginning scene is stilted, electronic, with weird intonation, just as you might have imagined it would be.

And yes, the play by Matthew Libby raises questions about AI: can a bot replace human companionship (even as there are public discussions about using chatbots as therapists), what are the limits of a bot’s thinking, and is any of that emotion—grief, jealousy, disappointment—real or just cleverly contrived? With those topics, you can probably get through a drink or two’s worth of interesting conversation with a chatty companion of your choosing.

Nonetheless, it is the very human questions raised by the sisters’ lives and interactions that grabbed my attention and won’t let go. For example, who are we without our memories? How much forgiveness can any one relationship lay claim to? How do we survive the loss of those we love? Do we comprehend and appreciate the value of those irreplaceable relationships that last a lifetime (or close-to)?

Jihan Haddad as Matilda is a tour de force, on stage for ninety minutes, convincingly portraying her character as a child, petulant teen, young single, middle-aged and then 96 year-old woman. The dialogue with sister Greta (portrayed by the talented Madeleine Barker, off stage) is both ordinary (Matilda’s “I met a guy” revelation), contemplative (what does it mean to have a body?), and rich with emotion, including the trading of recriminations at full volume. And then something tragic happens, and the audience, along with Matilda, waits.

The suspense intensifies the audience’s investment in the characters. As I waited along with Matilda, I shared her anxiety and was busy constructing in my head the ending I was hoping for. And when it came, well . . . it was both expected and a surprise.

So, if you are immersed in AI you will find the play enjoyable. If you not so immersed but are simply human, you will be drawn in all the same. I remarked to someone post-performance, “This could be the story of any two people who have a shared a lifetime.”

See this play. It’s theater that will stay with you, and that is a precious opportunity.

Sisters is playing through October 20, 2024 at Northern Stage in downtown White River Junction, Vermont. More info is here. To see a previous related post about how you can talk with a chatbot, Greta 2.0, in the Northern Stage lobby, click here. Greta 2.0 will discuss her sister, and according to Northern Stage, might well forecast the weather. Upon a query from my husband, however, she wisely declined to predict the results of the upcoming presidential election.

(Photos, top and middle: Jihan Haddad as Matilda. Photos by Kata Sasvari)

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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.