In Data, Matthew Libby’s cautionary tale of the comprehensive reach of big tech, it is Arena Stage’s technical production that most persuasively tells the tale. The production’s design team is on the same page with Arena Artistic Director Hana S. Sharif’s program comment that theater requires the opposite of comfort. The set, sound, and lighting designs create a closed, harsh, inhuman world that overwhelms the lives and personal concerns of its inhabitants. Entering the Kogod Cradle, the audience sees Marsha Ginsberg’s set, a metallic, box-like structure reminiscent of the interior of a larger-than-life shipping container, bathed in a cold green hue in Amith Chandrashaker’s lighting design. An H-shaped neon lighting fixture dominates the ceiling of the structure. Karan Brar (Maneesh) in ‘Data.’ Photo by T. Charles Erickson Photography. The audience hears the amped-up repetitive beats of Dan Kluger’s electronic dance music score, into which Mikaal Sulaiman’s sound design immerses the audience at a high decibel level. The volume level is a feature, not a bug, a choice that draws the audience into the play’s theme of the dehumanizing power of our electronic environment. As the play proceeds, the colors of the lighting of the set change but remain cool. With few exceptions, there is no visual warmth to be had. Between scenes, a glaring, moving border of lights follows a rectangular path around the sides and top of the set, delineating the boundaries of the box in which the characters — and by extension the audience — are contained, as the blaring sound reasserts itself. Overall, the production succeeds at creating a sensory analog of a world dominated by the manipulation of data by powers far out of individuals’ control. The characters work for Athena, an AI-centered firm working on a secret government contract. Maneesh (Karan Brar) is a new employee who, in college, developed a killer algorithm to predict rare events. Having qualms about the potential uses of his creation, he first works in the humdrum “user experience” (UX) section of the company, but quicky finds himself drawn into the more prestigious data analytics division. Once he learns the full purpose for which the Department of Homeland Security wants to use the product Athena is developing (it concerns immigration, which strikes a particularly chilling note nowadays), he faces an ethical dilemma. A Sikh whose parents immigrated from India, Maneesh is a nervous, uncertain young man, deeply concerned with meeting his overbearing parents’ expectations, but wanting to do the right thing. While there are snippets of information about his pre-Athena existence, like the other characters he lives wholly within Athena’s none-too-friendly confines. Vehicles for the play’s themes, the characters are not people the audience gets to know in depth. Maneesh works for Alex (Rob Yang), himself an immigrant from Singapore. Well-regarded in his field (he has given TED talks about it), Alex is essentially a middle manager, exerting power over the workers on his project while under constant pressure from above. To meet his deadlines, Alex pushes Maneesh to allow his algorithm to speed up the project. TOP: Karan Brar (Maneesh) and Rob Yang (Wang Tao (Alex); ABOVE: Isabel Van Natta (Riley) and Karan Brar (Maneesh), in ‘Data.’ Photos by T. Charles Erickson Photography. While Alex seeks to use Maneesh to move his project forward, his co-worker and college acquaintance Riley (Isabel Van Natta) seeks to use him to undermine the project by helping her blow the whistle on it to the press. Having long suffered the unrelenting sexism of the tech industry, Riley speaks of being angry all the time. Beyond her anger, she has genuine moral concerns about the project, which she likens to the “predictive policing” of the movie Minority Report. The fourth character is Jonah, a too-hale-and-hearty, none-too-bright, weight-lifting bro, stuck in UX where “streamlining” (i.e., downsizing) threatens his job. He envies the characters who work in data analytics, where the action is and where layoffs are less likely. The other characters have a moral compass, even if they rationalize setting it aside. Jonah, willing to betray others to protect himself, has none. Jonah and Maneesh begin the show playing ping-pong, awkwardly talking as they bat the ball slowly back and forth. (Credit is due the actors for keeping the bouncing ball and lines working together smoothly.) Often, even aside from the recurring ping-pong sequences, the characters’ interactions are halting, real conversations being at a premium. Real conversations do happen in two key scenes. The back of the set opens to a loading dock, where ambient sounds of the outside world are heard for the only time in the play, as Maneesh and Riley discuss the moral implications of their work. Here they are physically as well as morally stepping outside the box. Later, Maneesh and Alex meet in a conference room. Maneesh points out that his algorithm could hurt real people in the real world, including his parents and Alex himself. Alex counters not only with threats and inducements but with a moral argument. Data and its use in governmental decisions exist (he cites the Chinese “social credit” system as an example), and if Athena and the American government don’t prevail in this electronic arms race, then commercial and international competitors will create worse outcomes. Director Margot Bordelon keeps the pace of the show crisp, with a sure sense of when to vary the tempo. In many scenes, actors deliver lines at a fast clip, in keeping with the speed at which tech work moves. When, as in those two key scenes, characters have important things to say and are listening to one another, the tempo slows appropriately. Nobody in the play mentions 20th-century American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, but in his 1932 book, Moral Man and Immoral Society, he argued that individual morality is intrinsically incompatible with collective life, making social and political conflict inevitable. How, if at all, can individual morality mitigate the persistence of collective immorality, whether in corporations or nations? That is essentially the conflict that drives this provocative play of ideas about the data-driven world in which we live our daily lives. Running Time: Approximately one hour and 40 minutes, with no intermission. Data plays through December 15, 2024, in the Kogod Cradle at Arena Stage, 1101 6th Street SW, Washington, DC. Tickets ($75–$149) may be obtained online, by phone at 202-488-3300, or in person at the Sales Office (Tuesday-Sunday, 12-8 p.m.). Arena Stage offers savings programs including “pay your age” tickets for those aged 35 and under, student discounts, and “Southwest Nights” for those living and working in the District’s Southwest neighborhood. To learn more, visit arenastage.org/savings-programs. The program for Data is online here. COVID Safety: Arena Stage recommends but does not require that patrons wear facial masks in theaters except in designated mask-required performances (November 16 at 2 p.m. and December 1 at 7:30 p.m.). For up-to-date information, visit arenastage.org/safety. Data By Matthew Libby Directed by Margot Bordelon