"Welcome to the Theatre": Diary of a Broadway Baby
Still
April 13, 2024 | Off-Broadway | Daryl Roth 2 Theatre | Evening | Play | Original | 1H 5M | First Preview
A slow start to what quickly becomes a rapid-fire play about clashing politics, lost love, and sexual desire between two characters over sixty-five. Still is a short piece, thank god, and stays about as long as its welcome allows. The second half is much stronger and more engaging, but also evokes the ambiance of a political thread on social media. Liberal woman, conservative man who find out their conflicting politics and woman is disgusted, while man doesn't see why they can't put it aside and keep having sex. Tim Daly and Jayne Atkinson bring solid performances for a first preview, and I experienced a special kind of euphoria when Atkinson (65) started taking off her clothes. Any play that lets an older woman get half-naked and showcase a realistic old body with all the sagging and flab and wrinkles that entails is a good play in my book.
Extra layers and enjoyment were added by the presence of Tea Leoni in the audience, who gleefully applauded throughout. Leoni was, of course, Atkinson's co-star on Madam Secretary, as well as the co-star/spouse to Tim Daly. So she got to watch them frantically make out and leap into bed before going on a "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" journey with each other.
Thirty years ago, Helen and Mark broke up, but they never completely forgot about each other. When they meet for dinner to catch up, the flame is rekindled... but Mark is running for Congress, and Helen has a secret that could derail his bid. Lost love is revisited and an avocado goes flying in Lia Romeo's whirlwind world premiere comedy about getting older, political divisions, and roads not taken.
A story for anyone who's ever wondered: "what if?"
After reading the plot, couldn’t help but think it would be perfect if Téa would play the role of Helen 😆😆😆
Also, not sure how I missed this, Jayne Atkinson is the VP in Madam Secretary!!!
Criminal Minds writers: Before Strauss dies she tells Hotch that she loves all her children equally so Hotch's profile in season 2 was wrong. Just a little inconsistency in the script, no one will notice :)
me, an intellectual: Hotch's profiles are never wrong. It was true that Strauss favored her son over her two daughters back then. But part of her personal growth while overcoming her alcohol addiction was that she stopped hating herself and feeling guilty for always putting her job before everything else and being carrer-driven and not a stay-at-home mom. She grew up in a conservative household and like most other women of her generation developed internalized misogyny and thus secretly always hated herself for being career-driven and felt guilty for not being at home with her children. Women with internalized misogyny favor their sons over their daughters because the relationships with their daughters trigger many of their own insecurities. This guilt and self-loathing eventually resulted in her alcohol addiction and when she was finally working on battling her addiction she had to deal with all those negative feelings towards herself and finally understood that having a more difficult relationship with her daughters as opposed to her son was the result of her own insecurities and the way she perceived herself as a bad mother (at one point in the show she says that being a working mom comes with 'sacrifices'). This development can also be seen in her relationship with Blake. She destroyed Blake's career to save her own so she obviously didn't have a problem with torpedoing another woman in order to save herself. After overcoming her alcohol addiction she wants to make amends and expresses regret over what she did to Blake. She admits that she treated another woman poorly and wants to make it up to her. Hotch's profile was never wrong but Strauss needed to work on her own insecurities and feelings of guilt and her internalized misogyny in order to be able to have a healthy and harmonic relationship with her daughters and not pass her issues on to them.