The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow

It may be about robots, but "The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow" bursts with human feeling. The hook of Rolin Jones' new play is its techno-savvy comedy: We follow a brilliant young agoraphobic woman who searches for her Chinese birth mother by sending her robot likeness on a trip around the world.

It may be about robots, but “The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow” bursts with human feeling. The hook of Rolin Jones‘ new play is its techno-savvy comedy: We follow a brilliant young agoraphobic woman who searches for her Chinese birth mother by sending her robot likeness on a trip around the world. And in its Gotham premiere at the Atlantic Theater, the show does indeed contain funny jokes and witty references to the email age. However, behind all this cleverness beats a bruised heart. As androids search for families and real people move robotically along, we also hear a deeper story about loneliness in modern times.

By now, of course, every third play explores how technology robs us of human connection. But Jones makes the subject fresh with rich characters and a knack for situations that are both ridiculous and honest. On both fronts, his greatest achievement lies in hero Jennifer Marcus (Julienne Hanzelka Kim), a 22-year-old genius who can hack into government computers but is terrified to leave her parents’ house. Charming, brash and well-spoken, Jennifer is instantly likeable.

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The play opens with the revelation that Jennifer’s robot doppelganger — Jenny Chow (Eunice Wong) — has vanished, and as we learn what led to the disappearance, we see that all her outlandish predicaments have resonant emotional roots. After all, she created her robot only because she wanted to find a mother to whom she could feel more connected than she is to her distant, adoptive parents (Linda Gehringer and Michael Cullen). And her refusal to leave the house eventually feels like an extreme reaction to what every young person faces: the fear of being lost when it’s time to become an adult.

These simple needs make the play more than a high-concept joke, and Jones’ script deftly balances the humor and the ache. The writing would be lost, however, without the production’s sensitivity. To that end, composer Matthew Suttor leads a stellar design team by writing spare, electronic music that brings a tinge of sadness to the wildest scenes. And Takeshi Kata’s set evokes the play’s central metaphor, since it places Jennifer’s self-imposed prison of a room before a vista of the California mountains. That wide world is just a backdrop, flat and unreachable.

Director Jackson Gay — who helmed the show last year at Yale Rep — creates an inventively low-tech vocabulary that suits the play’s wit. Take the scene in which Jennifer’s stoner best friend, Todd (Ryan King), chases the Jenny robot in his car: We know the robot has splashed down in a lake because a stagehand steps out to throw a glass of water in his face. Gay has the confidence not to linger on these gags, so they’re funny without being forced.

Comedy also comes effortlessly to Remy Auberjonois, who tears through a host of walk-on roles. In a standout scene as Jennifer’s scientist mentor, he takes a simple speech about being forced to work at Yale — “I tell them first day,” he cries, ” ‘You should all be riverboat captains!'” — and turns it into an apoplectic tour de force. For all his comic achievement, though, Auberjonois gets nothing to do when things turn sincere. The play tends to shortchange all the men this way, leaving the wrenching moments to the women.

The most heartfelt scenes, then, fall to Gehringer and Kim, who must navigate the thousand emotions between a mother and a daughter. Both actors bring fire to their roles, and Gehringer especially captures the desperate love that makes Adele push her daughter to be normal (or at least go outside). Her bewildered eyes say Adele can’t believe her parental devotion has made her so harsh.

Crucially, though, Jennifer’s mother is more than a harridan. She can be soft, shrewd and, in one brief scene with Cullen, even sensual. Likewise, most of the play avoids simple categories. When Jennifer obsessively combs her hair, she’s acting like a robot. When Jenny Chow refuses to follow orders, she’s becoming human. When people try to bury what they ought to express, their emotions spring up everywhere.