Justice without mercy becomes punishment, and mercy without justice becomes apathy. But how do we strike the balance when the system and the society behind it seem to have forgotten both? In And Then We Were No More, playwright Tim Blake Nelson invites us into a future so plausible it stings, in an unnamed state governed by a bloodless bureaucracy of data, algorithms, and chilling efficiency.

Elizabeth Yeoman

Elizabeth Yeoman and Elizabeth Marvel

A Stop the Wind Theatricals production at La MaMa, Nelson’s new play is a slow-burning philosophical thriller about what happens to humanity when the system no longer needs to hate you in order to kill you. Executions are now carried out by a machine, a sleek, allegedly “painless” mechanism of justice that is anything but merciful. Elizabeth Marvel is the moral spine of this shifting world. She gives a tour-de-force performance as A Lawyer reluctantly drawn into defending a woman whom society has already written off as “beyond rehabilitation.” The Inmate has killed her two children, her husband, and her mother, but she is clearly mentally ill and suffering deeply. Marvel’s outstanding stage presence anchors the piece: she unfolds each line with measured precision to emphasize the force of justice, dignity, empathy, and duty. Every gesture she makes, every pause, every glance, feels essential.

Scott Shepherd, Elizabeth Marvel, and Jennifer Mogbock

She is joined by Scott Shepherd, whose deadpan delivery and cerebral edge as The Official lend the dystopia a terrifying sense of normalcy. Elizabeth Yeoman is chilling and heartbreakingly fragile as The Inmate, and her suffering feels so real, it is almost unbearable to watch. Jennifer Mogbock plays The Analyst, embodying the faceless corporate machine, while Henry Stram is The Machinist, a man disturbingly in love with the very system consuming him. The supporting cast (William Appiah and Kasey Connolly as the Guards, E.J. An and Craig Wesley Divino as the Engineers) channel a sterile institutional cruelty that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Black Mirror episode.

Scott Shepherd, Elizabeth Marvel, and Henry Stram

Director Mark Wing-Davey handles the material with restraint, and then sharpness when he needs to push the philosophical knife deeper. What makes And Then We Were No More so unsettling is not its vision of the future but how closely it mirrors our present. In this world, punishment isn’t considered brutal but rational. Sentences are determined by blood samples, neurological scans, and predictive data models. Guilt is an equation and redemption is a variable deemed statistically irrelevant.

Elizabeth Marvel and Henry Stram

David Meyer’s set design reflects a retro-futuristic world: towering cylindrical metallic structures glow with vivid orange-red light, while shifting Plexiglass panels and a looming execution machine center stage evoke a chilling blend of spectacle and control. Reza Behjat’s lighting suggests a clinical atmosphere, yet maintains a precise, attentive focus on the actors, illuminating them with just the right intensity at pivotal moments. The sound design by Henry Nelson and Will Curry adds a low, mechanical soundscape, and the costumes by Marina Draghici fit the icy trend leaning toward the utilitarian; starched, gray, anonymous outfits perfect for a world where names no longer matter, and people are stripped down to profiles and probabilities.

Elizabeth Yeoman

The clearest spiritual ancestor here is Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, with its cold machinery of justice and opaque moral logic. But Nelson updates the paranoia with contemporary anxieties: algorithmic bias, data harvesting, and neural surveillance. This is dystopia without spectacle, just a slow erosion of meaning. The execution machine may promise “no pain,” but the play insists on reminding us that pain is not always physical. Sometimes, it is the absence of choice, of identity, of hope. Tim Blake Nelson has written a play that is not easy, is not loud, but it lingers hauntingly, thoughtfully, unshakably. If you think it might be too grim, think again. The cast breathes such life into the material, you will leave haunted, yes, but also deeply moved and happy you saw it.

Elizabeth Marvel and Elizabeth Yeoman

photos by Bronwen Sharp

And Then We Were No More
La MaMa in association with Stop the Wind Theatricals
Ellen Stewart Theatre, 66 E 4th St
Tues-Sat at 7; Sat & Sun at 2
2 hours, 5 minutes with intermission
ends on November 2, 2025
for tickets ($10-$99), visit La Mama