“Time Stands Still” for Lyric Stage Journalists
By Georgiaree Godfrey–02/19/12
The life of a journalist comes to the stage in “Time Stands Still.” Boston’s Lyric Stage Company received a standing ovation with an adaptation of the Broadway hit. The play mimics reality with a floor-level set, small intimate venue, and a few cuss words.
The difficulties of a journalist’s life are illustrated through the struggling relationship among the main characters. Sarah is a photojournalist who has just returned to her Brooklyn apartment after almost being killed in Iraq. James is Sarah’s boyfriend and fellow journalist. He has been living in Sarah’s apartment for the past six months after spontaneously leaving Iraq. While overseas, he witnessed a marketplace bomb that killed women and children. The visions haunted him and he was no longer able mentally to work in that environment. Sarah and James defend their professions, arguing that people would be blind to issues outside of their own homes if journalists did not do their job. To them, being injured while covering a story is nothing more than an “occupational hazard.”
However, the play is not always eager to cast journalism in such a positive light.
The show subliminally critiques journalism and its violation of ethics through the character Mandy, Sarah’s editor’s spunky and naïve girlfriend. Mandy is distraught at the idea of journalists standing around taking pictures of people suffering and dying. She believes that instead of playing with a camera, journalists should interfere and try to change the events around them. She says the world is too beautiful to show only the misery.
External and internal conflicts affect the characters’ relationships. But as Sarah’s wounds heal, her relationship with James suffers because of her addictions to the adrenaline brought on by reporting. The relationships of all the characters are strained over what it means to be a journalist. The Lyric Stage Company will be performing “Time Stands Still” through the end of March at the YWCA.
Photo credit: Roby Ferrari