Mary Elizabeth Hamilton (Photo: JMA Photography)
How are smart devices changing how we live . . . and love? Are we aware of all that can happen when AI becomes an intimate part of our home life? Playwright Mary Elizabeth Hamilton has dramatized these questions in SMART, the witty and topical new family drama about why we let technology into our homes, and the unexpected changes tech can bring. SMART is the 2023 EST/Sloan Project Mainstage Production. Learn more about what other questions concern Mary below.
Previews of SMART start March 30 at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and the show will run through April 30. Reserve your ticket here.
(Interview by Rich Kelley)
How did SMART come to be?
EST/Sloan gave me a commission to develop SMART five years ago. At the time, we had just gotten an Alexa for my partner’s mom, who was dealing with memory loss after a stroke. I became interested in the ways in which the device — and tech in general — can be used for communication with people dealing with memory or language loss.
As I understand it, the play began as a one-page proposal when you first submitted it to EST/Sloan. How has the play changed over the past five years?
We had a workshop in which the play changed quite a bit, in all the ways a play changes in an early workshop. We had a second workshop. And then the world shut down. Suddenly, the idea of a character working remotely (which we worked so hard to explain in that first draft) was painfully familiar, and the characters’ experiences of loneliness, feeling cut off, trying to communicate with family from afar, made sense in a new light.
I also developed the play as a TV pilot, and parts of the story changed pretty drastically, but the relationships of the three women in the play, and the questions about privacy, communication, boundaries and technology, have remained central in every iteration. Returning to the play, I wanted to update some of the tech to be more in conversation with what’s happening in the world now. Everything has changed so much. And I’m sure will be wholly different in a week.
Why this play? Why now?
When I started, I would have answered that questions about technology and privacy, and the ways tech impacts our personal lives and relationships, feel pretty central to our world. That’s still true, but as the play evolved, and as AI was more in the news, I became interested in the ways tech relates to memory and language, and how it impacts how we try to create a shared experience of reality.
Do you own any smart devices? What do you use them for? How would you characterize your relationship with your device’s persona?
My daughter was given a Siri at the start of the pandemic. I was deep into research for the show at the time, watching and reading everything about how tech companies are using these devices to monitor and collect our data without our consent. So I was super creeped out by it and unplugged it every chance I got. But I eventually came around to the idea that it’s probably not much worse than my phone, and it does make listening to music easier . . . I go back and forth between intense paranoia and resignation. I do try to be polite to the robot’s persona, just in case.
Both of your main characters, Elaine and Gabby, have close relationships with a parent. SMART is quite powerful in capturing the stress and conflicting emotions of caring for an elderly parent in decline. Does your sensitivity on this front come from your own personal experience?
My grandfather had aphasia, and was a big part of my life growing up. My mom cared for him during that time, and seeing him transform from a person with incredible speaking ability to someone who struggled with the most basic utterances made a huge impression on me. And as I mentioned, my ex’s mom had dementia from a stroke when I started working on the play, so she was very present in my mind as well.
You wrote all eight episodes of the wonderful podcast Power Trip with Tatiana Maslany. How does writing a podcast differ from writing a play?
The biggest learning curve was realizing just how much we rely on visuals in theater. Telling a story that is only auditory became a lot more reliant on dialogue. Another note I ran into is that audiences listening to podcasts space out, so you need to find organic ways to keep circling back and reminding them what’s going on.
You have been a member of EST’s Youngblood program. How has that affected your playwriting?
I had no idea as a clueless 28 year old what a lasting part of my life that program would become. At the time, I was nannying, raising a toddler, and not writing very much. The handful of Brunch sketches I managed to crank out made me feel like I was still a playwright, and that community was really central to keeping me sane during a pretty intense period of my life. Many of my closest friendships and collaborators remain people I met in Youngblood.
How does the development process at EST differ from the process at other theaters?
So, yesterday I walked into Graeme's office [Graeme Gillis is Co-Artistic Director of EST], during a particularly intense moment in an overall intense rehearsal process. I unloaded all of the many things I was concerned about, some more ridiculous than others, and Graeme took the time to talk through each one, then asked calmly if I had slept (not in a while) and if I had been eating (some stale chips I found backstage?). An hour later, he showed up in rehearsal with a banana and a granola bar, and later that day came to a run with a bag full of fruits and vegetables for the cast and crew. I don't know of another theater where the newly appointed artistic director takes time out of his doubtless busy day to not only listen to your problems, but to personally walk to the deli and make sure the artists are nourished. So that’s one way the development process at EST is different.
What do you want the audience to take away from seeing SMART?
As much as the play explores themes of boundaries in technology, it’s also a play about communication, and the ways in which we attempt to connect using whatever means we have at our disposal. I think tech has become part of the fabric of how we try and fail and continue to take stabs at making meaningful connections.
