Time Stands Still, Betty Buckley, Christine Ebersole

 
Donald Margulies’ terrific new play, Time Stands Still, boasts smart writing as well as bravura performances from a stellar cast including Laura Linney, Brian d’Arcy James, Eric Bogosian and Alicia Silverstone. The story of a photojournalist (Linney) and her journalist boyfriend (James) at a crossroads in their relationship as well as professional careers, Time Stands Still is that rare adult drama you’ll think about long after you leave the theater. Nearly killed covering the war in the Middle East, Linney arrives home to be cared for by James and visited by her editor (Bogosian) and his girlfriend (Silverstone). Dealing with uncertain futures, Margulies dramatizes the difficulty of one couple’s attempt to reconcile their relationship within the natural progression of their changing lives.
 
Betty Buckley returns to Feinstein’s with a new collection of show tunes entitled For the Love of Broadway that finds one of our favorite divas in excellent voice and having a grand time. Singing an eclectic group of standards by everyone from Rodgers & Hart to Lopez & Marx (Avenue Q), Buckley’s distinctive voice remains one of the great instruments ever to belt out a song. My one complaint about Buckley remains her continued reliance on written lyrics that she keeps on a music stand in front of her. Amazingly, other critics either don’t mind or are too fearful to “call her out” on it. Some songs she knows cold with the resulting performance being dazzling. For others she has to glance at the lyric after almost every phrase, with her interpretation of the song lessened. It’s incomprehensible that a performer of Buckley’s stature doesn’t realize how much of her performance is sacrificed due to inability to remember the words. For a woman whose theme song is “Memory,” this lapse in logic is the height of irony.
 
There are no memory problems at Christine Ebersole’s new show at the Café Carlyle (closing February 20), only sublime singing and a delicious collection of songs artfully woven into a sparkling evening of cabaret. From Cole Porter’s “Too Darn Hot” to Noël Coward’s “I’ll See You Again,” Ebersole’s chameleon-like voice—which can inhabit any genre and style of music as effortlessly as the wind blows—is merely a showcase complementing her delightful stories contrasting life in Hollywood and in Maplewood, New Jersey. In short, Ebersole is a goddess who personifies what an entertainer is all about.    N


Time Stands Still plays through March 27 at MTC (261 W 47th St, 212-239-6200). Betty Buckley plays through February 27 at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency (540 Park Ave @ 61st St, 212-339-4095).