Nuclear Family: A new play by Dayna Smith

Or: A Singularity

In the year 2044, a small American family instals NiNa (Tiara Thompson), a robot maid and caretaker into their home. What follows is Dayna Smith’s intricate and sparkling examination twenty years, tracing this one thread through a changing tapestry of an America where the definitions of “humanity” is warping by the year.

Smith’s play has two incredible coup de graces: a sober reflection of the human costs, deprivations, and lash-backs of a robotized society (all ready in its first chapters these days), and a precise construction of NiNa’s character. Navigated with superb exactness by Thompson, NiNa may get “upgrades” and take a different tack with each member of the family, but her core language and goal; to be of assistance, to achieve “ultimate altruism,” as one audience member put it, remains incorruptible. And that is simultaneously deeply endearing and quite terrifying, a delectable double flavor.

Smith has her code running on many processors regarding the family, some with greater precision than others. Some stories or moments of the family’s saga stand out sharp and vivid while others drift in and out, lost in the gnarly ground of her complicated timeline. Stand out performances include Matthew Kelly as Dad (Greg) who handles his playwright’s frequent monologue’s with aplomb and Jamie Nebeker as Daughter (Harriet), the intelligent and zealous activist for robot rights, her surety the leaf screen for a pit of uncertainty.

The sweetest crust of Nuclear Family is the questions it engenders. Many contemporary plays strive for a nebulous handling of issues, “we want to make our audience think,” but Smith is the only one I’ve seen who taps that vein. All throughout the family’s actions and reactions to NiNa spark all manner of disturbed and conflicting feelings. And even more impressively, the talkback following the reading was a thunderhead of differing opinions, bringing up further speculations of Smith’s world and the ethics of human technology interactions as the echo back to our own situation. What was agreed on was that we had tasted a touching, disturbing, finely crafted, and incredibly timely drama.