Review: In Still, Boomer Lovers Reunite, Hook Up, and Regret

There are some things that, once learned, cannot be forgotten: how to read, how to ride a bike, and how to hurt someone you loved. Still love? We can see that clearly in the latter half of Lia Romeo’s Still, which is now having a return engagement at the Sheen Center.

As the avocado that Helen (Melissa Gilbert) has inexplicably stowed in her giant purse flies past the head of Mark (Mark Moses), the ex-boyfriend she has agreed to meet this evening, we know that old spark has ignited into a flame of rage and resentment.

“Were you always this much of an asshole or is that also something that happens as people get older?” she asks, incensed that he failed to disclose the fact that he’s now a Republican and is running for Congress (she probably wouldn’t have adjourned upstairs to have sex with him if he had revealed this information during the drinking and chatting part of the evening). “Maybe it happened somewhere around the time you killed our baby,” he spits back, hatred in his eyes (she had an abortion 31 years ago, and that ended their relationship). Both in their 60s and estranged for decades, they still know how to push each other’s buttons. It’s in their muscle memory.

Less memorable is Romeo’s wisp of a play, which I reviewed last year when it made its New York premiere with Colt Coeur. The actors have changed (for the better), as has the venue (for the worse), but director Adrienne Campbell-Holt’s production remains as solid as it was. And the script is still a half-drawn portrait of a relationship based on sexual attraction but ultimately doomed to failure—albeit more believable this time around.

That mostly has to do with the two actors, who have even better chemistry than the original pair of Jayne Atkinson and Tim Daly (who were also very good). It’s easy to imagine them as a real couple in the pre-Internet age, and this meeting is an opportunity for them to finally play out the conversations they have both been mentally having since then.

Gilbert’s portrayal of novelist Helen suggests a woman who has spent a lifetime overcoming her own good-little-girl impulse to be agreeable around men. But she still conveys emotional vulnerability, as any decent writer should. Gilbert succeeds in this tonal balancing act, and the moment she finds her voice and tells him off is a triumph of l’esprit d’escalier.

Moses brings heaps of soap opera daddy charm to the role of lawyer and budding politician Mark. His kindly listening face implies someone who will do well in constituent meetings, while his aggressive complimenting of Helen tells us that he’ll also knock ’em dead with donors. But is he too solicitous? We soon begin to suspect that, like most politicians, Mark has ulterior motives for this meeting. The sex is a fringe benefit.

The bougie hotel bar and mildly sexy hotel room of Alexander Woodward’s turntable set fits better on the larger stage of the Sheen’s Loreto Theater, but we lose quite a bit of intimacy as we stare up at this sexual rendezvous from the airy house. At least the crackly sound system makes us feel like voyeurs listening to an argument in an apartment where the intercom button has gotten stuck in the pressed down position. Technically terrible, it has its dramaturgical benefits.

An easily digestible 75 minutes, Still is likely to have you thinking about your own failed relationships. Sexual compatibility is great (and is usually heightened by prolonged absence), but it is never enough to overcome irreconcilable differences.