Time Stands Still

by Donald Margulies

Geffen Playhouse - February 25, 2009

Live Review by Adam McKibbin

Photograph of Anna Gunn (as Sarah) and David Harbour (as James) by Michael Lamont

Current events are the catalyst in Donald Margulies’ Time Stands Still, but the heart of the conflict in this domestic drama is timeless:  what happens when the person you love turns into someone else?  Can you find a second calling in life when you are prevented from following your first? 

The four characters who serve as each other’s crutches – literally at times – live in a world forever changed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.  Sarah (Anna Gunn) has returned home to NYC scarred and temporarily crippled.  A renowned photojournalist, she dryly notes that she’s just wasted her 15 minutes of mainstream fame in a coma.  Her longtime partner – in the field as well as at home – is writer James (David Harbour), who suffered a nervous breakdown and retreated home several weeks before the accident that nearly killed Sarah – and did kill their trusted guide/translator Tariq (who plays a pivotal part from beyond the grave).

The accident propels the lovers in very different directions.  Consumed by guilt, James starts to question the sanity of a life always spent on the run to the places that everyone else is running from.  They’re the sort of couple that always chuckled at the institution of marriage, but with Sarah in a coma, he had to defer to her detested father for medical decisions.  James takes the accident as a sign to make some changes – and Harbour gives an alternately fragile and forceful performance.  Although he’s merely witness to tragedy – worse than that, he wasn’t a witness – his arc is the most compelling, as it always feels like it belongs to him (whereas Anna’s crisis about the morality of her profession, while plenty provocative, sometimes sounds more like a mini-essay than extemporaneous dialogue).

Further complicating the not-so-happy home is the arrival of the duo’s editor and close friend, Richard (Robin Thomas), who lives vicariously through the journeys of Sarah and James, while fighting more mundane battles on his own career – battling for column inches against an onslaught of celebrity and style features.  He surprises his pals by presenting his new girlfriend, Mandy (Alicia Silverstone), a perky party planner who may as well be from another galaxy as far as Sarah is concerned.  Mandy provides some needed levity, for the most part unintentionally.  But the sweet and slightly, ahem, clueless Mandy – perfectly played by Silverstone – proves to be no pushover, prodding Sarah to justify her belief that reporters cannot try to involve themselves in the story – whether it’s helping a wounded child captured through a lens or, presumably, helping poor Steven Adler find his bed in Sober House.

Margulies likes to delve into those Big Questions, and he’s got the writing chops to pull it off.  A few Theatrical-with-a-capital-T arguments or monologues notwithstanding, director Daniel Sullivan and his capable cast channel all of the cerebral stuff into decidedly naturalistic, flesh-and-blood performances.  Sarah and James have defined themselves for years by their careers, holding themselves above the ordinary and naïve people like Mandy who only occasionally brush against the cold realities beyond their daily bubbles (and sometimes may brush only because of the couple’s gritty reportage from the streets of Beirut and Baghdad).  The antipathy James feels for the general audience manifests in several effective scenes, including a self-loathing (or tongue-in-cheek) meta-scene that skewers the good intentions of socio-politically minded playwrights and the ease by which Americans assuage their guilt simply by serving as spectators to difficult truths.  It isn’t long before Sarah feels the itch to be out there amidst the difficult truths again, while a fatigued and frustrated James tries to talk himself into a life as an online horror movie critic. 

He’d likely have lots to review in the months ahead; Hollywood box office receipts are up substantially so far in 2009, as the recession has consumers hungry for escapist entertainment.  Look for more Paul Blarts and Jasons and Watchmen on the horizon – often credited to “writers” who deserve the quotation marks.  Time Stands Still and its Pulitzer-winning creator ask audiences to think without attacking them with dogma – and that’s still a treat, even when the sky is falling.