New Comedic Production of ‘Still’ Raises Timeless Questions of Love

Who, as they reach their later years, doesn’t occasionally look back and wonder . . . was he or she the one who got away? Is the attraction there . . . still?

That timeless question is raised anew in the latest production of Still, now playing at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture with two stars from hit TV shows diving into live theater again.

Written by Lia Romeo, and directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt (yep, among the many female voices currently filling our stages), Still stars Mark Moses, whom you’ll recognize from Mad Men and Desperate Housewives; and Melissa Gilbert, from Little House on the Prairie (that little girl is now a proud and impressive 60).

I saw it last year at the Daryl Roth Theatre on East 15th Street, starring Tim Daly and Jayne Atkinson. I hoped it would return. And so it has.

The play opens with the two characters reuniting in a bar, and for the first 20 minutes we’re in what might be considered rom-com territory. Mark and Helen are in their 60s, both quite successful in their careers, he a lawyer and she a novelist who made a fleeting appearance on the Times bestseller list. They were a couple three decades or so ago. Now, a visit from the out-of-town Mark has spurred a reunion of sorts. Does the chemistry return? Can they overcome new and changed politics?

But it is the personal more than the political that matters here.

“You realize these people were meant to be together and they’re going to have to figure it out.” says producer Jane Dubin. “Ultimately, this play is about connection, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be bringing this to a new audience.” The show starts Jan. 28. (The second night, Jan. 29, will also be a fundraiser for the people of Los Angeles suffering from those wildfires.)

The challenge for playwright Romeo was keeping the words relevant but not too on-the-nose. “The world looks different and scarier now than when I wrote it,” she says, “and I think the questions it asks are even more important. Instead of responding with contempt when we disagree, how can we engage? I feel like in a Trump world, some lines land differently, and I change the ending almost every day.”

She confesses that the play emerged from her own life. “When I have a question without an answer, I write about it,” she says. “What to do when you love someone, but you hate some of the things that person believes. I wrote this play to try to figure it out. I hope it will leave audiences with a lot of questions.”

Mark Moses is loving the challenge and experience and being back on stage after so much TV work. “This play doesn’t just float, it sails,” he says. He studied at NYU but then spent most his career in Los Angeles (though he did Love’s Labour’s Lost at Shakespeare in the Park). “I love live theater,” he says. “You go moment to moment and every performance is different. It’s so exciting because we’re all in this together, the cast and the audience. We laugh a lot, we cry a little bit.”

His leading lady agrees. Gilbert was sent the script while she was on vacation. “We had a large amount of kids and grandkids and then I read this play,” she recalls. “And I thought, How can I possibly not do this? It asks, ‘Is love enough to find common ground?’ I was married twice before to men who, let’s say, were politically conservative fathers to my children. They didn’t work.” The actress is also excited about showing that women can age while remaining sexually aware. “Your romantic self doesn’t go away,” she insists. “We are still juicy, vital people.”

In the end, this is a play about rekindling—or not—a love affair that mattered. And it’s about getting us all to a place where we can talk and walk at the same time. (Guess I’ve been watching too much West Wing.) “Conversation is the only way to change minds,” says Lia Romeo, “and I hope this play can be a piece of that conversation.”

Michele Willens’ Stage Right . . . Or Not airs weekly on Robinhoodradio.