Mark Moses and Melissa Gilbert play a former couple reconnecting after three or four decades in Lia Romeo’s timely comedy-drama Still, which is being revived almost a year after its original Off-Broadway premiere.
At the start of Still, two people—long ago, a couple; now, well over 60—are getting reacquainted in a swank hotel bar with a cocktail and a conundrum. Helen (Melissa Gilbert) comments that “the cells in your body” are “renewing themselves all the time,” and “after seven years you’re a completely different person,” at least “on a cellular level.” Mark (Mark Moses) recalls a “brain teaser” about a ship: “it’s made of wood, and every time part of it breaks they replace it with a part made of metal. And eventually every single part has been replaced. Is it still the same ship?”
Moses plays a lawyer in his sixties who may be acting out of mixed motives in his courtship of a former girlfriend. Photographs by Maria Baranova.
Hold that thought. Off-Broadway plays seldom exhaust their scheduled runs and then crop up again Off-Broadway within a year. Such, though, is the case with Lia Romeo’s two-hander, which enjoyed a respectable-length engagement last spring at the intimate DR2 Theatre near Union Square, where it fit like an expertly cut gem in a tiny jeweler’s box. Now it’s back, again smoothly directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt; and, like Mark’s ship and Helen’s cellularly renewing organism, it has new features, along with held-over elements from the original (notably, Andrew Woodward’s clever sets and Reza Behjat’s lighting, both scaled up for the less gemütlich main auditorium of the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture). Is this revival still the Still of 2024 or a different theatrical animal?
Romeo’s play was developed under the auspices of Colt Coeur, the Brooklyn company that also nurtured Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day (which has just concluded a Broadway run). Romeo’s script addresses the moral implications of today’s civic polarization and the scarcity of respectful dialogue across canyons of political disagreement. The playwright integrates that timely topic with themes essential to playwrights from Aeschylus to Albee—mortality, for instance, and the mutability of all earthly things (especially emotion, ambition, and desire). Her characters are believable; their talk is touching, often funny, and only 75 minutes in duration.
“ The second half of the play is filled with expertly written surprises. ”
Mark is a Colorado lawyer visiting Washington, D.C. on business. Helen has come from the suburbs, at Mark’s invitation, for a casual reunion. Three or four decades ago, their relationship cratered due to a thorny conflict that, to avoid spoilers, won’t be detailed here. Mark married soon after the break-up; he and his wife, after raising a family, have recently divorced. Helen, by contrast, has steered clear of entanglements that might imperil her ambitions as a novelist.
In the bar’s coziness, the pair respond to rekindled attraction. They compare notes on insecurities and disappointments. Mark dismisses Helen’s admiration of his professional accomplishments with a wisecrack: “Of all the lawyers in Colorado who are six feet tall and named Mark, I’m probably the most important.” Helen responds to his enthusiasm for her novels by confessing, “I haven’t written much, the past couple of years. And I’ve spent a lot of time feeling bad about it.”
Mark recalls that, immediately after his mother’s recent death, when he was feeling “more alone than” ever before, “I wanted to call you.” Helen blurts out something she hadn’t meant to share: “I’m sick.” It’s breast cancer and, though her condition isn’t immediately terminal, she can’t ignore the writing on the wall. Mark responds with tenderness, envisioning himself caring for Helen—“being there for you”—if her health takes a turn for the worse.
Moses and Gilbert rekindle an old attraction.
Nostalgia, residuary fondness, and loneliness, along with alcohol, propel the pair upstairs to Mark’s hotel room, where Romeo ignites spectacular narrative fireworks. The second half of the play is filled with expertly written surprises. Suffice it to say, Romeo’s characters and their mixed motives are drawn with precision and verisimilitude. What’s most human and recognizable in the latter part of the play is the uncertainty of whether, after years of experience, these long-ago lovers are better equipped to handle differences in perspective and conflicts of values than they were as young adults.
A year ago, in the original New York production, Jayne Atkinson (truly an actor’s actor) and Tim Daly plumbed Helen and Mark’s psychologies in performances that were a high point of the Off-Broadway season. Their 2025 successors, Gilbert and Moses, are competent stage performers, in addition to being television stars; but they haven’t located the nuances in Romeo’s dialogue or the complexities of characterization that made Atkinson and Daly compelling. Casting, as it turns out, distinguishes the 2025 Still from its predecessor; and this year’s version suffers by comparison. All the same, Romeo’s fine play deserves to be seen, either here and now or in the productions bound to follow around the country.
Still (originally scheduled to run until March 23) will play through March 3 at the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture (18 Bleecker St.). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and at 6 p.m. on Friday; matinees are at 2:30 p.m. Thursday and at 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and information, visit sheencenter.org.
Playwright: Lia Romeo
Direction: Adrienne Campbell-Holt
Scenic Design: Alexander Woodward
Costume Design: Barbara A. Bell
Lighting Design: Reza Behjat
Sound Design: Hidenori Nakajo
