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Time Stands Still, the double-edged title of the Donald Margulies play that opened Jan. 28 at the Samuel J. Friedman, refers, on the one hand, to the split-second permanence caught by a camera and, on the other, to the eternal purgatory where two globe-trotting journalists drag themselves, between wars, to recover from the hell of battle.

Home is a comfortably cluttered Williamsburg loft, and these two enter it gingerly — James Dodd (Brian d'Arcy James), who supplies the words, and Sarah Goodwin (Laura Linney), the pictures for the wars of the world. They wear the atrocities they've witnessed. She is hobbling and shrapnel-marked from a roadside bombing in Iraq; he's less obviously scarred — by a frontline breakdown and, more recently, by the guilt for not being there for her. Whether they like it or not — and you get conflicting views here—peace has broken out for them, and they must face their life together when they no longer share the same goals and wants.

"I always saw this as a love story," Margulies admitted later at the Planet Hollywood after-party. In the year since the play bowed at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, he has been rewriting it to punch up that vision, with Daniel Sullivan, who directed both productions. "The difference between L.A. and New York is really pruning it — it was overwritten, I was trying things out, which is what a world-premiere is for. It was so chockfull that the love story couldn't come to the foreground. It was hard to discern what was foreground and what was background."

Neatly contrasting Couple One is a relatively sunny, stateside pair, safely insolated from the war zone: Richard Ehrlich (Eric Bogosian), an editor pal of the couple, and an out-of-her-element girlfriend half his age, Mandy Bloom (Alicia Silverstone). She's an event-planner, and Linney's character sarcastically supposes she's an event-player, too — only her events are war, famine, genocide, etc.

"This is a fabulous ensemble," purred the contented Margulies. "They're playing like great jazz musicians. I'm just basking in joy, watching them do this play. My admiration and affection for them grow daily, and my appreciation of my collaboration with Dan is something I cherish. I have to write more plays just so I can continue to work with Dan Sullivan. We do have a great time. There's a lot of laughter and trust in the room whenever we work together. And Laura Linney really kinda set the tone for this rehearsal. She's such a great team player. There's no diva nonsense. It was very much a collaborative effort."

View the Entire Photo Gallery Laura Linney Photo by Aubrey Reuben

Linney fully embraces the all-for-one approach to acting. "It's not just the character I'm playing," she said. "It's the four of us together, and the writing is so good. It has been a joy from the minute I walked into rehearsal the first day, an absolute joy."

She brings equal measures of courage and crankiness to the part — plus a pronounced limp that reminds audiences for most of the play how much physical pain Sarah is in, despite her surface bravado. "I talked to physical therapists," Linney relayed, "and I just thought a lot about what the injury would be, how severe it was, how much healing would happen by the end of the play."

As her lover and gradually-cracking pillar of support, James presents a dimensional character that has grown stronger from the Donald-and-Daniel tinkering in the long trek East. "They worked really hard to take what they had in L.A. and make it better for New York," the actor said. "It's been a real honor to witness that, to see how they have changed the script to support the story. Even from what I began with, there have been changes — which is always a frightening thing but ultimately satisfying." Continued...