Marjorie Prime review: June Squibb is a marvel in an early highlight of the Broadway season

1 hour, 20 minutes, no intermission.Hayes Theater, 240 W.

44th St.From the moment June Squibb takes the stage at the Hayes Theater in “Marjorie Prime,” you feel lucky to be in her presence.The stage and screen legend is back home on Broadway, where she got her start in “Gypsy” opposite Ethel Merman in 1960, for the first time in eight years. In between being on the boards, she’s been hard at work making films, giving wonderful lead performances in “Thelma” and “Eleanor the Great.” At a spry 96 years old, Squibb is, at long last, in her title-character era. The actress is astonishing as a widow named Marjorie in the superb revival of Jordan Harrison’s haunting science-fiction drama that opened Monday night.Much in the same way Squibb has only gotten finer with age, so too has Harrison’s complex 11-year-old play about artificial intelligence, its possibilities and the deeply intrusive role it could have — hell, it already does — in our own lives. Eighty-five-year-old Marjorie sits in a comfy arm chair and speaks to Walter (Christopher Lowell), a friendly robot, called a Prime, that perfectly resembles her late husband when he was in his 20s. The Prime says he exists to “provide comfort.” Hmm, OK.He hears her happy stories, absorbs facts, learns her personality and develops his own.He’s a kind of ChatGrievePT. Lowell is very funny and a little “Twilight Zone” as the android when he glides into the room with a ballerina’s grace.

His silky voice could definitely give you directions on the highway.The flesh-and-code pair chat in the green living room of Lee Jellinek’s set, which is an ideal color for sci-fi — futuristic, relaxing and sinister.Marjorie, who is Gen X, is smitten with the CPU.Everybody wants someone to talk to, right? And more importantly, they need someone who listens. But her daughter Tess, played by a raw and powerful Cynthia Nixon, distrusts the technology.

She refers to Walter as “it” — not “he...