{"id":1589238,"date":"2025-10-02T13:32:37","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T17:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/observer.com\/?p=1589238"},"modified":"2025-10-02T18:48:57","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T22:48:57","slug":"interview-tim-blake-nelson-play-and-then-there-were-no-more-la-mama-elizabeth-marvel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/observer.com\/2025\/10\/interview-tim-blake-nelson-play-and-then-there-were-no-more-la-mama-elizabeth-marvel\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Marvel On Navigating a Dystopian Future in Tim Blake Nelson\u2019s \u2018And Then We Were No More\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Elizabeth<\/a>
Elizabeth Marvel and Elizabeth Yeoman. Photo: Bronwen Sharp<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tim Blake Nelson forecasts a grim future in his play, And Then We Were No More,<\/i> which director Mark Wing-Davey opened last week at Off-Broadway\u2019s La MaMa. Here is a world without judges or juries. Verdicts are reached by machines\u2014non-negotiable machines. A machine also functions as the executioner. Anyone considered \u201cbeyond rehabilitation\u201d is destined to perish in a newly developed machine designed to execute \u201cwithout pain.\u201d The lawyer representing the convicted must strive for justice in a system that is devoid of mercy.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Marvel plays the lawyer. \u201cThat\u2019s literally the name of my character,\u201d she tells Observer. \u201cI think it\u2019s a good indication of the nature of the play. We\u2019re almost archetypes. It\u2019s as if all the dross has been burned off these people. I represent the law and the function of the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy position is that a painless execution is a lie. It cannot be proved. It\u2019s only diagnostically proved by computers. Nobody has reported back from the other side as to the truth of it. In my opinion\u2014not my character\u2019s opinion\u2014there\u2019s no such thing as a painless execution. I don\u2019t want to give too much away because part of the play is the argument of the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marvel has the rep and heft for this role. She put in time as the U.S. President on Homeland.<\/i> Her usual playground is Off-Broadway (she has three Obies\u2014for Therese Raquin,<\/i> Misalliance<\/i> and A Streetcar Named Desire<\/i>). \u201cI\u2019ve never been invited to the Tony party,\u201d she smiles.<\/p>\n

Same for her equally gifted husband, Bill Camp. He recently brought off a sharp, persuasive portrait of that investment moneybags, J. P. Morgan, on The Gilded Age.<\/i> Taken together, they qualify as the Lunts of Off-Broadway, although Marvel is quick to shoot down that kind of aggrandizement: \u201cWe\u2019re just a couple of old hippies, who run around in our pajamas all day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Elizabeth