Data, Kogod Cradle, Arena Stage, Washington, DC

Karan Brar as Maneesh and Rob Yang as Alex in Data. Photo credit: T. Charles Erickson Photography.

“What are you?”

I recall an experience from my college days, when I was part of a touring company playing various locales in Alabama. On one occasion, the accompanist was separated from the rest of us when a stranger asked her that very question. She explained that she was a visiting college student and the pianist for the play that was to be performed that evening. The stranger persisted in asking the same question, “What are you?” She repeated the information she had shared previously, but he asked a third time, “What are you?” Both unnerved and uncomfortable at this point she finally replied, “I don’t know!” His response was “I’m a Libra, what are you?”

Astrological sign is one way of defining what you are, though I doubt many of us today would start defining ourselves according to the zodiac. Depending on the context in which the question is asked, I believe the most common response people might have would be to tell us about their occupation, their marital and/or parental status, perhaps religious affiliation, ethnicity, heritage, geographic origin, any number of things, from gender identity and sexual orientation to their hobbies or sports team loyalties.

An article by Otis Ramsey Zoë (dramaturg for Data and Arena’s literary manager), included in the playbill for Data, is intriguingly titled “You = Data.” The article tells (or reminds) us that our use of the Internet, especially social media, puts our “what” online for much of the world to see. It is no coincidence that when I recently sought information online about renovating my bathroom, my Facebook feed and email suddenly were overrun by postings or advertisements for companies who specialize in that work. Research foreign destinations and you will be inundated by companies offering tours. And it is not just Internet-based:  I was recently in a restaurant and told the server that I couldn’t remember the specific cocktail I had enjoyed there several months ago. She inquired whether I had made a reservation for that occasion. I had. She disappeared for a few minutes and reappeared to tell me what both my dining companion and I had ordered in July.

My point is: Someone or something out there knows more about us than we realize. When we go online, no matter the reason, we create and leave a trail of our interests. And it is not just online: using a grocery store’s affinity card results in my being notified when some of the items I have previously purchased are on special sales. Give to one political campaign and receive dozens of emails from other candidates of the same party, even in faraway states. Unless you are hermetically sealed in your own bubble, “they” know more about us than we would have shared in face-to-face meetings.

This is the world into which Matthew Libby draws us in his remarkable, fresh new play. It is a morality play of sorts, a cautionary tale perhaps, and a very timely meditation on current events (practically “ripped from the headlines” stuff). That Data would open during the same week in which an election that often focused on immigration policy is almost eerie in its prescience.

Karan Brar as Maneesh and Stephen Cefalu, Jr. in Data. Photo credit: T. Charles Erickson Photography.

Data focuses on four young people working for a computer company that specializes in creating algorithms that predict individuals’ behavior based on what they have done in the past. Maneesh is a new employee at Athena Technology, who has been brought onboard in part because of his thesis work creating an algorithm that predicts baseball players’ performance based on their records. This is just the kind of data analytics that his manager, Alex, says that Athena is trying to create. Riley, a female acquaintance of Maneesh’s from college, has been instrumental in bringing him to Athena, where he works with a rather inept colleague who considers himself to be Maneesh’s mentor.

Maneesh is not really interested in pursuing the data analytics team, which appears to be the goal of most new hires. He is quite content to stay in a less-focused (and less stressful) work group. Alex turns up the pressure on Maneesh to join the group. Riley has learned more about how the work they are doing is to be used, which raises certain ethical questions. She wants Maneesh on board so she can have an ally.

There are other significant details that playwright Libby has captured. Maneesh is the Gen Z son of Indian (specifically Sikh) immigrants who came to this country for opportunities and are anxious for him to succeed. He still lives with them and his life appears to consist mostly of work and living in his parents’ house. There was a previous relationship of sorts, the end of which caused Maneesh to take refuge in alcohol, though he appears now to be resolute in his abstinence.

Maneesh’s manager, Alex, is a bit older, a Millennial of Chinese descent by way of Singapore. Alex has been around long enough to realize that if his company doesn’t do what they have been asked to do, however distasteful, another company will. Libby captures the hoodie-and-jeans attitude toward work, in which the company has supplied a ping-pong table in the employees’ break room to help them deal with work stress.

Data creates suspense for the audience in terms of how the moral/ethical questions will be resolved by the various characters. But these are not necessarily easily-delineated attitudes: we deal much more with shades of gray than with black-and-white ideas. Can data analytics really portray what we are as living, breathing, three-dimensional people from an almost infinite sets of circumstances?

The cast and creatives for Data do superlative work on this production. Karan Brar creates Maneesh as the mostly idealistic but conflicted “hero” of the piece. Maneesh is brilliant in the area of data analytics, but Brar also lets us see him as somewhat insecure in “adulting” in his new role. Rob Yang is Alex, the most “adult” of the characters. Yang shows us Alex as a kind of puppet master as he tries to keep his employees in line. He is not necessarily “jaded,” but is very much the pragmatist. Isabel Van Natta conveys Riley’s social awkwardness but also her basic morality. Stephen Cefalu, Jr. is the personification of the hapless Silicon Valley nerd. He sails through whatever happens, playing ping-pong, while later demonstrating that he, too, can be calculating in his choices and relationships with his colleagues.

Isabel Van Natta as Riley and Karan Brar as Maneesh in Data. Photo credit: T. Charles Erickson Photography.

Director Margot Bordelon coordinates a crisp, focused production. Marsha Ginsberg’s set design gives us a generic, almost-antiseptic, sparsely-furnished space, reminiscent of a virtual reality setting that represents a variety of locales including what the playbill refers to as “a break room, and a conference room…. And elsewhere.” The time period is defined as “The mid-2020s,” while also noting: “It might already have happened.” Amith Chandrashaker’s lighting design helps transform the “neutral” space. The lighting design also includes the use of moving and pulsating strips of light that provide a kind of frame for the stage during scene-changing intervals. Dan Kluger’s musical score may be described as electronic or techno-pop, which reinforces the shifting moods of the play. Beth Goldenberg’s costume designs subtly convey the motifs of the various characters.

Data provided me with a somewhat-rare opportunity to see a play about which I knew almost nothing. I was not prepared for its profound effect as I continue to ponder the essential and existential questions it asks. Libby is a playwright with a great deal of insight and a unique point of view. I am interested to see how subsequent productions of Data will be received as well as what new plays Libby will create. I invite you to join me in pondering this powerful play, which continues at Arena through December 15.