Still Off-Broadway Reviews

I don’t read the PR (Egad!) materials sent o me for most productions I see. I had enough of people telling me what to think in the Catholic Church. These days I go in unprepared and wait to see what happens. So it came as a surprise to me that I had seen a production of Lia Romeo‘s STILL last year And I repeat what I said at that time. Ditch the first act. The very little that is accomplished could be swept directly into the second act with no one the wiser.

This tension is overlaid with a nearly smothering blanket of anxiety. The audience is keenly aware that Helen and Mark have a limited amount of time to move on from their differences, and not solely because of Mark’s travel schedule. Helen pointedly informs Mark she is a very slow writer, having taken seven years to complete her last book. Is she ready now to begin a new chapter and meet Mark halfway? As the couple teeters between happiness and hopelessness, there’s something to make everyone watching feel by turns righteous and uncomfortable. Still, it turns out, is deeply moving.

That Lia Romeo has put two sixty-somethings front and center is commendable for a younger playwright to concern herself with and that Adrienne Campbell-Holt has led excellent actors like Melissa Gilbert and Mark Moses to sterling performances is worthy of excessive praise. What Still offers is food for thought that makes for a fine meal, especially for those hungry enough (and willing enough) to bite into something substantial.

“Still” largely works for me, in no small measure because of the two performances. These are pros. They make the most of Romeo’s crackling back-and-forth. Every pause, every switch in tone feels just right; their timing is exquisite.The timing of the production as a whole, however, is more problematic for me. Colt Coeur produced the same play ten months ago at a different New York venue, with the same creative team but a different cast. Much has happened in the last ten months – must has happened in the last ten days! – to make most New York theatergoers surely view Mark’s arguments on behalf of “moderate” Republicans as outdated and delusional.

Under Campbell-Holt’s fluid fast-paced engaging direction, Gilbert and Moses consummately capture their characters’ growing ease and attraction, teasing and then reassuring one another, kissing, and kissing again in the bar, retreating to his room and reviving the intimate connection they had in the past.