Review: TIME STANDS STILL at 12th Ave Arts

Time Stands Still (by Thalia’s Umbrella) draws you into a carefully crafted, intimate world where the line between audience and observer feels blurred. With a thoughtfully detailed set and a standout performance from its lead actress, this production, now at 12th Ave Arts, demonstrates the impact of small-scale storytelling with deep emotional resonance.

Written by Donald Margulies in 2009, Time Stands Still examines the complexities of relationships, virtue, and being a bystander through the lens of photojournalist Sarah (Jen Taylor). She returns home, wounded from a roadside bomb in Iraq, and she and her partner James (Quinlan Corbett) attempt to reconcile their traumatic experiences of war with the possibility of a quieter, more conventional future. Enter Richard (Mark Kuntz), their longtime friend and photo editor, with his much younger girlfriend Mandy (Tessa “Cricket” James), who challenge their notions of a moral high-ground and what it means to be authentically happy.

Where the story plays in the most interesting spaces is in its exploration of escapism, as James and Sarah grapple with opposing ways of coping. James intellectualizes horror films as a means of processing real-world terror, yet he uses them to avoid his own grief and guilt, staying up late under the guise of “research” to avoid his past. Sarah, on the other hand, seeks refuge in war zones, justifying her desire to return by framing it as a homecoming rather than an escape (saying her childhood home was just like a war zone so this work feels familiar to her). Their relationship is marked by a fundamental disconnect—she needs to keep moving, while he longs to freeze time. This tension is heightened in moments of miscommunication, where James sees Sarah’s trauma as something to fix, offering routine as a remedy she doesn’t need. 

From the moment the lights rise, the level of realism in the set design by Walter Kilmer is high-fidelity. This is not a typical stage-bound representation of an apartment; it feels lived-in. The coffee machine brews actual, steaming coffee audiences can smell. Their kitchen sink functions as a sink. Even the ice cream James buys at the bodega is real, the right flavor, and unopened! It’s these obsessive details that help blur the line between performance and reality, making the audience feel as if they are dropped into the couple’s Brooklyn apartment. The backpacks are full and look heavy. The bookshelves are filled with books one would believe this couple would own (“The Tin Drum”, etc.). The director knows that the audience can see the laptop screen, so when James emails Sarah memes, the screen shows memes. Well done! The production’s traverse staging (a setup where the audience flanks either side of the stage) amplifies this intensity. With no clear separation between viewer and performer, the interactions feel very intimate. This staging choice is high-risk, leaving nothing to hide behind, but the meticulous set design and prop work ensures it pays off.

What really elevates this show from good to great is the extraordinary lead performance by Jen Taylor as Sarah. Taylor has unshakable conviction, and we can feel every ounce of her internal battle. Every retort has an undertone of practiced jadedness. She’s so committed to the physicality that it’s easy to forget that her war injuries are not real. She never once breaks her limp, or lets the audience forget the pain she’s masking. Even in what appeared to be an unscripted moment, tripping over the rug, she, in character, smoothed the rug back into place, all while grimacing in pain. Her performance set a high bar for her fellow actors. She and Mark Kuntz as her editor Richard Ehrlich have great, believable platonic chemistry, and Kuntz’s performance is solid. I did feel that Quinlan Corbett’s James Dodd was a tad too dramatic, and didn’t match Taylor’s more nuanced performance (which, I can’t emphasize enough, was brilliant).

It didn’t help that some of the characters just weren’t as interesting. Mandy is a criminally underwritten role. As Richard’s younger girlfriend, she is meant to represent a fresh, uninhibited perspective, but the script reduces her to Richard’s one-dimensional midlife crisis. Tessa “Cricket” James, to their credit, finds depth where the text offers none in their performance, making Mandy a more robust, complex, and likable person out of a tired trope of a character. But one has to ask: why is Mandy the subject of ridicule when Richard, who compares his relationship to the fall of the Berlin Wall, is not? It’s rooted in a sexism that left a bad taste in my mouth, and a stereotype that feels out of place in a play that otherwise interrogates complex dilemmas with care.

However, my disappointment with Mandy’s character did not outweigh my enjoyment of what was a great show. Questioning the ethics of war photography is not novel, but what Time Stands Still offers is a compelling portrait of two people at a crossroads, clinging to a love that may no longer serve them. Thalia’s Umbrella’s Time Stands Still is good, clean storytelling, elevated by a fiercely committed lead and an immersive set. 

Grade: B+

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