Review: THE (curious case of the) WATSON INTELLIGENCE
By Toby Zinman
For the Inquirer
Madeleine George's The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence is a brainy play about computers and love, and the Azuka production, under Allison Heishman's canny direction, is smart and funny and oddly moving. It asks big questions about trust and human-ness and the "awning of history" and the contemporary "epidemic of feduped-ness."
The play's clever conceit is the startling coincidence of historical Watsons, and the play travels across centuries to find them:
There is Thomas A. Watson who was the man Alexander Graham Bell called in the world's first phone call: "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you."
And Dr. John Watson, Sherlock Holmes' sidekick;
And Thomas J. Watson who was the founder of IBM;
And Watson, the supercomputer, the machine that beat two "Jeapardy!" champions in 2011.
The playwright has added two more Watsons to her cast:
A robot who looks fully human but often gets social situations wrong; when he makes a faux pas, he asks for a "nudge in the right direction."
And finally, the ultimate Watson, Josh Watson, a techie who may be a computer, having achieved full singularity (robotic self-awareness) and thus seems to be completely human. His t-shirt reads: ASK ME ANYTHING. But maybe he's just a nice guy who is "preternaturally chill."
All the Watsons are played by Griffin Stanton-Ameisen who shifts among the styles and manners and costumes with remarkable charm and manages to absolutely distinguish each.
Watson's inventor, Eliza (Corinna Burns), who also travels through time, is first an unhappy 19th century wife who seeks Sherlock Holmes' help but finds only Watson at home on Baker Street, and then a contemporary scientist who, having left her husband, has found? created? a lover, an Adam in a paradise of sex and joy. But then, she is, of course, compelled to play Eve and escape Eden.
The husbands (played with great gusto by David Bardeen)—first a 19th century inventor who dreams of freeing himself from his romantic dependence on his wife by creating a technological replica, further envisioning a world of mechanized servant devices, and then a 21st century Libertarian whose is madly jealous of his scientist wife.
The time-travelling set, designed by Dirk Durossette, is very clever: a Victorian study with cardboard coffee cups and a computer and phones. The time-travelling costumes designed by Janus Stefanowicz are—at least for the men—equally ingenious.
The Watson Intelligence is, to say the least, complicated. And talky. And overlong. But it is also rewarding and witty and provocative, and the Azuka cast is extraordinary.
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Azuka Theatre at the Off Broad St. Theatre, 1636 Sansom St.
Through Nov. 23. Tickets $15-30. Information: www.azukatheatre.org or (215) 563-1100.