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Time Stands Still
The more people change, the more pictures stay the same
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The Manhattan Theater Company’s production of Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies’ (Dinner With Friends) new play Time Stands Still, starring the formidable foursome of Laura Linney, Brian D’Arcy James, Eric Bogosian and Alicia Silverstone, is kitchen table drama at, if not its finest, then damn good-est. Making its Broadway debut at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, Time Stands Still is the timely, interesting and original story of James (D’Arcy James), a shell shocked war correspondent,;Sarah (Linney), James’ longtime photojournalist girlfriend; Richard (Bogosian), Sarah’s even longer time photo editor; and Mandy, (Silverstone) Richard’s midlife crisis in a mini-skirt.
For two well paced acts, the peevish protagonists take turns reconnecting, reassessing and having lousy coffee in Sarah and James’s loft in Williamsburg as Sarah recovers from nearly being killed by a roadside bomb while on assignment covering the latest “war de jour” in an unnamed foreign land, presumably Afghanistan, Kazakhstan or possibly Baltimore.
Margulies’ script is an engrossing series of slow boiling scenes each leading to an awkward climax followed by a tension breaking comic aside or dimmed lights and poignant interlude music. The humor and thoughtfulness are dolled out in equal measure, keeping the drama on an even keel, even when the characters are well past their tipping point.
To be sure, Sarah and James have photographed and documented atrocities that would scar most people for life on first sight. But rather than consider the emotional toll of their profession, they keep flying from one international flashpoint to the next, camera and notepad ready in the hopes that somehow the light they shed on the world’s darkest situations will somehow help end the suffering—or at least make for a piquant coffee table book. For eight years they have been a powerful and inseparable one two punch, but domestic red flags fly when Sarah can’t wait to get back in the field while James has decided he’s seen enough. Instead of Darfur, he wants his next adventure to be in Disneyland with his and Sarah’s yet to be conceived children. Sleepless nights follow with Sarah admonishing James for wasting time on a meaningless freelance horror movie dissertation when he should be working on the introduction for their latest photo book. Discussions of how their relationship is or isn’t developing follow and help steer the story to its foregone conclusion.
Performances are on point across the stage. Linney, a Golden Globe winner, is believably irritable and appears genuinely frustrated as the adrenaline addicted photographer who will risk anything to get “The Shot,” even if the people photographed would prefer she be elsewhere despite her noble journalistic intensions. D’Arcy’s James is simultaneously sympathetic and appropriately annoying in his attempt to aide her physical recovery, forgive her a foreign infidelity and coax her into a cozy cocoon of Netflix, home cooking and family planning.
Thankfully whenever the household drama starts to weigh as heavy as a Russian tank, along comes Richard (Bogosian), a career editor caught between the last call of his libido, the ideals of his contributors and the economic needs of his magazine. Bogosian, an acclaimed playwright (Talk Radio) making his Broadway acting debut, is so perfectly cast as the middle-aged publishing pro that the part could easily be lifted from Bogosian’s recent Phillip Roth inspired novel, Perforated Heart. Having fought his battles in the editorial trenches and cocktail parties and endured his unseen previous “attack girlfriend” Abigail, an assertive substitute for Sarah whom he’s had feelings for since she first walked into his office 19 years previously, Richard, much like James, just wants peace of mind, albeit with an embryonic ingénue by his side, for dipping.
Enter Alicia Silverstone as the hottie, Mandy, with a heart of gold, who cries for elephants lost in the desert, is “clueless” to cultural references before 1990 and simply wants everyone to focus on life’s joys and not the miseries. Mandy might not be the most demanding role, but Miss Silverstone makes the most of her stage time and brings a youthful energy to what could easily dissolve into a quagmire of despair and desperation. And when Mandy’s free spirit is grounded by the arrival of her and Richard’s baby daughter, Silverstone, who reprises her character from the play’s inaugural run in LA, handles the transition from mindless Muffy to overprotective mother with ease, not to mention taking the baby weight off in record time.
So it would seem Scarlett Johansson, currently starring a few blocks away in the latest revival of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge, isn’t the only Hollywood actress making a new name for herself on the Great White Way, for when this whole “talking pictures” fad blows over.
Tony Award winning director Daniel Sullivan (Proof) has his cast playing and preying impeccably off one another and inducing the queasy, uneasy feeling of watching the intimacies and difficulties of people the audience has just met, but who are already old friends.
Lastly, John Lee Beatty deserves mention for his stage design of the rustic Williamsburg loft where Sarah and Richard have been living since “before it was cool.” The exposed brick space comes complete with running water, flat screen TV and a kitchen workspace that could easily be the main stage of the hipster food network.
It’s refreshing that in this era of endless revivals, ill advised adaptations and jukebox musicals that serious theater goers still have a worthwhile original play to support, a captivating human drama that wraps up realistically in an audience friendly two hours, with a 15 minute $11 scotch intermission. So for now and through March 21, Time Stands Still and will hopefully stick around for a while.