The reviews are in for Machine Learning, the world premiere of a play by the Australian writer Kate Vozella and the latest production from Little Engine Theater, the young company that staged Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s The Wasp last year. It opened on Tuesday, October 20, at Manhattan Neighborhood Network, a public-access television studio on West 38th Street that the designers have turned into a sealed residence where two couples are paid to be watched while an AI learns from them how intimacy works. Colm Summers directs Douglas Smith, Delaney Rowe, Emma Ramos and Michele Selene Ang. The critics part company less over the acting than over the premise: the four performances are admired across the board, with Rowe the name singled out most often, while several reviewers find the play more persuasive as a relationship drama than as a story about technology.
The verdict: five reviews in so far, and none of the five outlets publishes a rating. Stage and Cinema and TheaterScene.net are warm throughout; Off Off Online and The Interested Bystander admire the cast but think the artificial-intelligence frame is the weakest part of the play; TheaterMania is the coolest, finding the plot predictable and the closing metatheatrical turn unearned. What nearly everyone agrees on is the acting, and Delaney Rowe’s manipulative Georgia in particular. The New York Times has not reviewed it.
What are critics saying about Machine Learning?
TheaterMania
"A Reality Show Masquerading as an Experiment"
Reviewer: Zachary Stewart
Stewart is the coolest of the five. He likens the set-up to a season of reality television, calls the plot predictable, and gives Rowe the evening’s standout turn while suspecting that anyone in that part would stand out.
"Concluding with an unearned metatheatrical gesture, Machine Learning feels like a not particularly clever riff on Sartre’s No Exit."
He finds the other three performances solid, with Smith’s bullied younger brother the most affecting of them, and describes the direction as steady rather than inspired.
Stage and Cinema
"Deft direction and strong performances elevate an inventive premise"
Reviewer: Alex Simmons
Simmons is the most enthusiastic of the group. He calls Ramos a scene-stealer with some of the funniest lines, and saves his biggest compliment for Rowe, making her Off-Broadway debut, as proof that an internet comedian can bring real craft to a stage role.
"Machine Learning is a tight 90-minute drama with a stellar cast that explores companionship and the human condition"
He also credits Summers with keeping the action clear on a thrust stage, praises Christopher Wong’s lighting in a room with little theatrical equipment, and enjoys a late break in the fourth wall that leaves the characters open to the audience’s judgment.
TheaterScene.net
"Two couples participate in a paid study where they are observed by non-human entities intending to learn how to be suited as human companions."
Reviewer: Christopher “Caz” Caswell
Caswell admires how thoroughly the black-box studio has been remade into a warm, inviting room, and he treats the cast as a true ensemble, sketching each of the four characters in turn and crediting Summers with the brisk pace the script calls for.
"All four of these capable performers are ensemble players and keen listeners, expertly wearing their characters on their sleeves"
He calls Vozella’s script intelligent and incisive, and reads its unresolved ending as quite possibly the point rather than a flaw.
Read Christopher “Caz” Caswell’s full review at TheaterScene.net
Off Off Online
"Vozella’s script doesn’t really engage with the robots-in-the-making business."
Reviewer: Adrienne Onofri
Onofri splits her verdict down the middle. As a story of two relationships coming apart under one roof, she finds it gripping, a younger cousin of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Rowe’s Georgia in the Martha role; as a play about artificial intelligence, she finds it thin.
"…Kate Vozella’s Machine Learning provides 90 minutes of fiercely acted, propulsive drama."
She praises all four actors by name and enjoys Tyler Herald’s lamp-crowded set, but finds the meta ending abrupt and unsatisfying.
The Interested Bystander
"“Machine Learning” Is “Who’s Afraid of AI Woolf?”"
Reviewer: The Interested Bystander
Covering the show in a three-play post, this critic lands in the middle. The set and lighting are praised, the four actors are said to bring humor and raw intensity, and Rowe is singled out with a comparison to a young Demi Moore.
"Like in real life, it’s the human connection that makes the drama effective. The rest, alas, feels artificial."
The reservation is the AI conceit itself, which is where the review says an otherwise skillfully directed evening falters.
For more of what the New York critics have been saying, read our roundups for The Bald Soprano at the Sheen Center and Phyl at Theatre Row.
Machine Learning runs at Manhattan Neighborhood Network, 509 West 38th Street, through Friday, October 30, with performances at 8 p.m. The running time is 90 minutes without an intermission. Production photos by Valerie Terranova.
