Artificial Intelligence as a lens to the nature of humanity has been with us for some time. The fascination seems endless. From Ray Bradbury’s I Sing the Body Electric, to Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001, A Space Odyssey, to Phillip K. Dick’s Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep? It seems a perfect fit for Speculative Fiction’s customary blend of the fabulous with allegory. This obsessive need to prove human beings are no more than the sum of their parts, seems endless. If we ask, why do we need Van Gogh, or Rembrandt or Rothko when AI can paint the same pieces, perhaps we are already too far gone. Why this need to convince ourselves we’re nothing special? That technology is preferable to enigma?
Jane and Jackson have been happily married for ten years. Jane has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, an unimaginably dark and devastating turn. They discover The Lazarus Project, a (presumably) scientific organization that can return the deceased. Jane is intrigued, Jackson is ambivalent. Lazarus will create a flawless replicant, coalescing the client’s body with disease free infrastructure. At the start of Your Wife’s Dead Body, we see Jane jumping through all kinds of hoops (some more challenging than others) so Lazarus can gather information, intent on meticulous duplication. We see her answering questions, making sounds, fundamental calisthenics. This cuts back and forth between the somewhat dubious process, and Jackson’s first “reunion” with Jane.
Your Wife’s Dead Body examines assembling the organic, by way of the mechanical. The very concept perverse. If you think it’s possible, you’ve already missed the point. The intense splendor of living organisms: plants, birds, fish, humans, comes with the unpredictable. Of course birds migrate, plants grow towards the sun, fish spawn, and humans get hungry. But all of this will get you only so far. As Jane explains to the disembodied voices: Some days I feel like a mystery, others I want a romance. The Lazarus Project is trying to cultivate nuance, without grasping nuance. Their aims are noble. To “cure” the suffering of the bereaved. But there is a reason why the passing of our cherished ones hits us so hard. If no two cooks can use the same recipe and bake the same cake, how can we possibly hope to fabricate an actual human being? The human condition, with all its grace and excruciation, is miraculous, not a problem to be solved.
Playwright Jenny Ledel has crafted a chilling, sharp, and mesmerizing drama in Your Wife’s Dead Body. The ghoulish title seems whimsical, but goes far beyond irony. Ledel considers details somber and touching and fraught with despair. Saving Jane from ceasing to be. The scientific team, clearly out of its depth. Or anyone’s. The use of the phrase: from scratch. Tweaks that ignore what makes Jane who she is. The inevitable forfeiture of mortality. Gradually, each scene hits with ascending dread. Jackson is thrown into near hysteria, when his wife returns. Ledel addresses an issue that might be neglected in this ongoing debate. Treating the body without reverence is a kind of desecration. She takes on a ridiculously difficult task, then splits it open like a lightning bolt.
Second Thought Theatre presents the World Premiere of Jenny Ledel’s Your Wife’s Dead Body, playing July 24th-26th, 2025. 3400 Blackburn St, Dallas, TX, United States, Texas 75219 The Kalita Humphreys Campus. (214) 897-3091. secondthoughttheatre.com