Cynthia Nixon Is Back on Broadway With ‘Marjorie Prime’

A true story: Cynthia Nixon is at Sardi’s right now. 

Well, a version of her. The actress’ caricature portrait hangs on the back wall of the restaurant’s first-floor dining room, alongside illustrations of other actors who have made their mark on New York theater. Nixon’s likeness, which depicts her sky-blue eyes and signature blonde bob, joined the ranks in 2017, the year she won her second Tony award. 

In mid-November, the actress is seated in a corner at the iconic Broadway haunt, conveniently right next door to the Hayes Theater, where she’s starring in “Marjorie Prime.” Inside the theater, the walls of the set are getting a final coat of seafoam paint ahead of the show’s first preview performance later that week. The show’s opening night, set for Dec. 8, wasn’t far away.

With a copy of her script on the table, Nixon orders the salmon, an early lunch ahead of the day’s tech rehearsal. So far, so good. “Knock on wood,” says Nixon, the silverware on the table jangling as she does just that. 

“Marjorie Prime” marks Nixon’s first time on Broadway since her award-winning featured role in Lillian Hellman’s play “The Little Foxes.” A lot has happened since then.

“ I did a play two Januarys ago, but I haven’t done a Broadway play since before I ran for governor,” says Nixon, who challenged incumbent Andrew Cuomo for the democratic New York gubernatorial nomination in 2018. While Nixon, born and raised in New York, doesn’t currently have plans for another public office run, offstage she’s continued her political engagement with frequent appearances on news shows and campaigning for incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

“ My wife and I are very involved in politics and supporting progressive politicians, people who believe in the Green New Deal and people who believe in health care for all,” she says. “ It’s a terrible, awful time — but it is an exciting time, because when things are this bad, that’s when real change can happen.”

Nixon’s been busy in the years since. There’s been several new HBO shows, including “The Gilded Age,” and the “Sex and the City” reboot “…And Just Like That.” Nixon recently closed the chapter on Miranda Hobbs, one of her most beloved characters, after the series finale this past summer. But that’s just another coda in her decades-long career on the screen and stage. 

While it makes sense that Nixon would be eager to return to Broadway, where she debuted in 1980 while attending Barnard College, she adds that the decision is more straightforward: she just loved the “Marjorie Prime” script, her part, and subsequently her costars. She’s been a fan of Danny Burstein, who plays the husband of her character Tess, for many years; Chris Lowell worked with Nixon on another play 10 years ago. 

“And June — I mean, June is just such a powerhouse,” says Nixon.

June Squibb, who recently turned 96, stars as the titular Marjorie, Nixon’s mother in the show. 

“To watch her methodically build this character has been really fascinating,” Nixon says. “I work with a lot of disciplined people. Christine Baranski [her ‘Gilded Age’ costar] is an extremely disciplined person. Sarah Jessica Parker is an extremely disciplined person. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen any discipline like this.”

The play opens with a scene between Squibb and Lowell, who plays a character that’s soon revealed to be a much younger version of Tess’ father. The father isn’t actually her father: it’s a Prime, an AI-avatar created after his death. His loved ones feed the Prime information about his life, enabling it to convincingly converse with his family. The Prime only knows what it is told, and the characters aren’t sure how much they want to divulge. 

The Prime in “Marjorie Prime” isn’t robotic, but its speech and mannerisms are uncanny enough to suggest that it isn’t fully human. The set, a kitchen and living room, is similarly recognizable but slightly “off.” 

“ The play is so much about memory. What we remember, what we deliberately forget, what we deliberately don’t pass on to our children or whoever we’re educating — in this case, the Primes,” says Nixon. “And I feel like the set is like that, too. It’s like we’re only showing you part of the home.”

While the play is emotionally hefty (cue the tissues), Nixon is “always surprised by how many laughs there are,” she says. “ Mike Nichols used to say that when you’re gonna really punch the audience in the gut, you want them laughing first. You want them open.”

For Nixon, the tears started on the page. “The play really captivated me, and it really moved me. I really cried quite a bit when I read the play,” says Nixon of the sci-fi family drama. “It’s the kind of a play I personally would like to go and see.”

Recently, Nixon has been watching “Pluribus,” the new Apple TV+ sci-fi series from “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan. In the show, most people on Earth, despite their individual appearances, are linked by a shared hive consciousness. They all know everything. 

“It’s very like AI, right? It’s like a computer. There’s one brain. And so how do we feel about AI? Certainly, we rely on it in a lot of ways. Is it our enemy? Is it our friend? Should we be wary of it?”

As an actress, Nixon is “very scared” about the implications of AI. “ But I feel like if I was a writer, I would be even more scared,” she adds.

AI is a big part of “Marjorie Prime,” but fear doesn’t factor too heavily into the play, which taps the well of a different arsenal of emotions: regret, longing, love, grief. 

“ I think you could talk easily about the themes of the play even if AI weren’t in it,” says Nixon. “How do we grieve? How do we cope with the loss of a parent or a child? And when we’re passing on the story of oneself or the story of one’s family, what do you do? Do you tell everything? Do you tell the painful parts? Do you tell the bad parts?” she continues.

“Or do you try and soften and rosy it up for your child or your spouse that doesn’t know what happened? What’s the story we wanna tell about ourselves? Do we wanna tell the true story, or do we wanna tell the sanitized story?”

To find out which story Nixon’s character chooses to tell, you’ll have to settle into one of the rust-velvet chairs at Hayes Theater. And if you want the simulacrum version of Nixon, you can always drop by Sardi’s.