Time Stands Still

photo: Joan Marcus

Some spoilers below, but not the major ones.....

I scrolled through almost all the reviews of Donald Margulies' Time Stands Still and find myself in the curious position of having taken a different meaning from it than others I've read. I saw the play as an affirmation of the social consciousness of the artist. Not that anyone in the play calls noted war photojournalist Sarah Goodwin (Laura Linney) an artist although they come close and not that there's a halo drawn over her head. As the play opens she returns home to her Williamsburg loft physically scarred and weakened after a car bomb explosion. She soon makes it known that she intends to be back on the job documenting war as soon as she is strong enough, but her near-death experience has put other ideas in everyone else's heads. Her partner on and off the job James (Brian D'Arcy James) just wants to be "comfortable" at home rather than go back to work yet again in a war zone. Her good friend and editor Richard (Eric Bogosian) may profit from her work, but he just wants her safe and sound and tries to tempt her into assignments close to home, a sentiment echoed by his new younger girlfriend Mandy (Alicia Silverstone) whose social consciousness doesn't extend far beyond her own occupation as an event planner. What can she do as a regular person except feel bad when she sees war images, she asks rhetorically, evading any identity as a citizen of the world. At the top of the second act James has some lively business damning the "manufactured experience" of some unnamed piece of socially conscious war-themed theatre he recently attended: it's a rich irony considering that he's begun filling up his days writing articles about horror movies. At the core of it, he's saying he's given up on art (just as he will later give up on journalism) affecting any change in the world. The people all around Sarah aren't selfish monsters - they're fundamentally good people we recognize who just want to take care of themselves and their own happiness. It's no wonder that she begins to doubt her calling and to struggle with whether she is doing social good in her work or is just a "ghoul with a camera" turning a profit on suffering. I found the play consistently thought-provoking to a thrilling degree and the production (directed by Dan Sullivan) to be pitch-perfect. All the performances are excellent - Linney especially is revelatory, fully believable at every moment and giving a compelling performance by dint of its constant truthfulness. I can't imagine there's going to be a richer, more riveting performance on Broadway anytime soon.

Daddy

photo: Eduardo Placer

Despite the title and the come-on, the focus of Daddy is less on the middle-aged stud (Gerald McCullouch) and his relationship with an office intern (Bjorn DuPaty) than on the one with his longtime best bud (Dan Via, also the playwright). The early scenes lead you to expect a story about the challenge to a longterm friendship when one gets into a serious relationship, and maybe that's what the playwright thinks he has written, but whatever might be uncomfortable and ugly in the dynamic between the friends is glossed over. The playwright has written himself a saint to play, wise and selfless and good to the core. There are some solid one-liners ("Anyone who says opposites attract has never been to a gay bar") and McCullouch sounds some notes of honesty, but the plot finally takes a melodramatic, groanworthy turn that manages to conveniently dismiss the older-younger affair and further sanctify the best friend.

The Crucible

Before I went to see this production (at Manhattan Theatre Source) of Arthur Miller's classic I tried to determine how many times I'd already seen the play performed in my lifetime. I lost count around 20. I'll confess, I was skeptical that I'd get much out of seeing it again in a small 50-seat black box, but there I was fighting tears along with most everyone else during that final scene. The tiny-budget production doesn't have any directorial gimmick and makes do with a few white boxes and a cross in the way of scenery, but it turns out that seeing the play well-performed in a super intimate space is all that is needed to give the story fresh urgency. That, and a powerful central performance by Seth Duerr who understands, unlike so many others I've seen in the role, that the more vital and flawed the character the more compelling his story. His Proctor is hot-tempered and formidable, miles away from Daniel Day Lewis' milquetoast performance in the misguided film which turned the play into nothing more than a pageant of victimhood. Other very strong performances include Sarah E. Mathews as Proctor's wife, Naomi McDougall Jones as Abigail, Amy Bohaker as Mary Warren, and Angus Hepburn as Danforth.

Goodbye Cruel World

photo: Jim Baldassare

Poor unemployed Semyon (Paco Tolson) has never been so popular as when he decides to shoot himself. Suddenly several strata of Russian society are beating down his door to lay claim as the inspiration for his upcoming suicide. That's about the gist of this slice of dark (often existential) humor adapted from Nikolai Erdman's The Suicide by director Robert Ross Parker. The original play had enough political criticism to get its playwright banished to Siberia during Stalin's reign and you can certainly still see why, but as presented here the tone is more zany than heavy - one can greatly enjoy the production either for the intelligent sting of its text, for the contagious joy with which this distinct brand of comedy is put over by a game cast of 6, or (preferably) for both at the same time. Cast standout: William Jackson Harper, an actor I've admired in several dramas who here displays dead-on comic timing.

Present Laughter

photo: T. Charles Erickson

In The Roundabout's ill-judged revival you see plenty of what you never should in Noel Coward: sweat and effort. As the vainglorious stage actor at the center of the comedy, Victor Garber looks every inch the distinguished part from opera slippers to plush smoking jacket but he surprisingly seems to lack the larger-than-life size that's needed to drive the show. To compensate he pushes hard, often with fatal flop-sweat results. The production doesn't do him many favors, thanks to direction that doesn't find the needed rhythm and a supporting cast that misses the mark. Brooks Ashmanskas, usually a dependably spot-on performer, gives a hyperactive performance that people are talking about for the wrong reasons: he's so far out of the style of the piece that the laughs he mugs for work actively against the play. I watched most of his performance through two fingers. A couple of solid performances, from Harriet Harris (delicious as the actor's cynical secretary) and Lisa Banes (exactly in the style of the piece as the wise, sharp-witted ex-wife) are the evening's mitigating pleasures.

Time Stands Still

photo: Joan Marcus

In Time Stands Still, an expertly crafted drama of issues by Donald Margulies, Laura Linney gives the kind of performance about which theatre lovers dream: slow-boiling, committed, and exactingly realized. She is Sarah, a passionate photojournalist whose last assignment (covering the war) left her maimed but still invigorated. This dismays her longtime lover James (Brian d'Arcy James, excellent), a writer who is ready to get out of the combat zone and settle down in Brooklyn. Margulies wisely allows this conflict to play out leisurely through the first act, with the characters able to put all their feelings on the proverbial table. It makes for arresting theatre, and Linney and James more than convince as a couple whose love for each other might not be as strong as their professional drive. Their experience is mirrored in the play's second couple: Richard (Eric Bogosian, terrific in his long-awaited Broadway debut), Sarah's editor and former lover; and Mandy (a phenomenal Alicia Silverstone), his somewhat mindless young wife. Despite Sarah's manufactured contempt for them, you cannot help but notice James longing for a relationship like theirs. This well-crafted realization, along with many other factors, make this the first must-see new play of 2010.