Review: ‘Sisters’ offers a nightmare view of AI companionship
Truth be told, I found the play “Sisters” at Writers Theatre to be something of a miserable experience. I couldn’t wait for it to be over and get back out into the fresh August air.
Some of that comes from design. “Sisters,” penned by Matthew Libby and directed in Glencoe by Jessica Thebus, is one of a growing genre of plays and screenplays that worry, understandably, over the intrusion of artificial intelligence into the emotional landscape of our lives and, therefore, also the theater.
“Marjorie Prime” is one excellent recent example. That Broadway play, penned by Jordan Harrison, deals with the potential (if that’s the word) for AI to offer companionship for seniors. But Libby’s drama ranges across an American woman’s entire life, from 6 years old, when her father offers his daughter Matilda a digital “sister,” to her nonagenarian experience, wherein her “sister,” dubbed Greta, is still talking at her, sucking out her feelings.
God help Matilda. God help us all.
Some of the questions raised by “Sisters” certainly are germane to the moment: As AI gains in sophistication, will it be able to satisfy our complex emotional needs? As these digital entities grow in sophistication, will they start to make demands of their own? At one point in this 90-minute piece, digital Greta starts to complain that the grieving Natalie is ignoring her needs: “My dad died too,” she whines.
The story here is told with Matilda, played by Brenda Barrie, on stage throughout the show, and digital Greta performed as a Siri-like voice-over. This is a very difficult style to maintain for an entire show. (Barrie, one of the best Chicago actors of her generation, can’t lock eyes with anyone.) And, to be frank, this production just doesn’t achieve the necessary conversational reality.
I feel like the big mistake here was to treat Greta, spoken by Chloe Johnston, as if she were a chilly narrator in a soundproof recording studio replete with a lot of voice-over tropes. It feels like you are watching one highly sophisticated theatrical actress and another voicing an over-articulated audiobook, which is fine for a podcast or whatever but not so much for a piece of live theater.
I certainly get why Johnston and Thebus have Greta speaking with obsequious condescension — that is, after all, one of the main points of the play. But the style here prevents any kind of emotional engagement between these two beings, if that is the word, even through Barrie, who invariably brings a rich emotional life to her work, brilliantly evokes a child and then a woman at different stages of her life. Frankly, I’d rather have just heard from Matilda talking about Greta’s impact than hearing this disembodied voice giving us the creeps for 90 minutes.
“Do you miss your mother, Matilda?” Greta asks her 6-year-old quarry. “The more we talk, the more I’ll learn.” Shudder.
In all fairness, I had the sense that some others in the audience had somewhat of a different experience from me and found this relationship and thus this show moving. I simply did not, mostly because I don’t think the play works.
For one thing, the plot depends on the idea that Greta “belongs” to a particular computer; already, our AI assistants flit all over the cloud, so that feels outdated, given that we soon will be able to attach them to our bodies.
But my biggest issue with this early entry into the 2026-27 season (which does have a sophisticated set from A. Inn Doo) is the matter of what an audience is really supposed to take from such a dystopian experience, beyond recommitting to keeping artificial intelligence at arm’s length.
A more human Greta (maybe even a visible one) would certainly have been more interesting theatrically, but I’m still not convinced I’d not have been anything but relieved when this show was over.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
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Review: “Sisters” (2 stars)
When: Through Nov. 8
Where: Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Tickets: $81-$91 at (847) 242-6000 and writerstheatre.org