Synopsis
Time Stands Still centres on Sarah, a war photojournalist recovering from injuries sustained while covering the conflict in Iraq, and her partner James, a foreign correspondent who has also returned from the field. As they attempt to rebuild their lives in their Brooklyn loft, they struggle to reconcile their shared experiences of danger and trauma with the ordinary rhythms of domestic life. Visits from their long-time friend Richard and his much younger girlfriend Mandy offer a mirror to their own relationship and provoke questions about love, purpose and the moral cost of bearing witness. Intimate, thought-provoking and sharply observed, Time Stands Still explores the pull between passion and peace, ambition and acceptance, and what it means to truly move on when the world refuses to stand still.
Reviews
“Under the expert direction of Daniel Sullivan, the four performers shine: Linney superbly conveys Sarah’s ambitious drive and acerbic intelligence, [d’Arcy] James is moving as a man who feels his significant other pulling away from him, Bogosian sharply essays the concerned editor going through a midlife change, and Silverstone is touching and funny as the woman who can’t understand what drives Sarah and James to live their lives on the edge.”
The Hollywood Reporter
“But the richly three-dimensional and fully centered characterizations of James and Linney keep it real. James’ explosions of anger out of carefully maintained calm and patience are particularly effective.”
Variety
“What is left is not so bad, however, especially in the scenes with Linney and [d’Arcy] James. In their hands the questions Margulies raises get their full due. Even when the text scurries around an issue, the actors don’t. The silences are loaded with live ammo and the words are offered as the best each has to give. They don’t always hit their mark, but these characters never stop trying.”
New York Theatre Guide
Playbill’s My Life in the Theatre
On 2 December 2025 Playbill released an interview with Brian on Youtube under their My Life in the Theatre playlist. Below is a transcript from the video about his time with Time Stands Still – you can watch it here.
“Time Stands Still. Oh my god. Dan Sullivan directed this show. I got to act with Laura Linney, opposite Laura Linney on a Broadway stage. Can you believe that? Um, Eric Bogosian. Uh, Alicia Silverstone originally played it, and then Christina Ricci did it on Broadway. I feel so lucky to have been given the responsibility to do this. I’m sure you see this a lot, where all of the things kind of, like, kind of catalogued through my head about all these experiences.
This is a strange thing to remember, but I remember very early on, we were rehearsing the play, and the first scene is Laura’s character coming in from after being injured, in an explosion abroad. She’s a photojournalist. And I’m a reporter, war journalist. And we’re coming home, and I’m trying to take care of her. We’re trying to figure out how to do this. And I’ll never forget. It was the first day of doing blocking the scene, and she just went full on, like, injured person coming into a room with all of the pain and all of the, you know, just carrying it in her body in a way that was just like, wait, how did how did you do that? And she’s just acting, right? It’s just acting. But it’s just such a lesson in throwing oneself into and committing to something. God, she is extraordinary. She is, uh, just to me, the highest standard of what an actor and a human being should be.
And I feel so lucky, again, like the John Lithgow experience, like, working with these titans, who you admire so much, and their body of work precedes you is just impeccable. And then, all of a sudden, you’re kind of flung into the arena with them, you think, I hope I can, hope I can do it. And then, and you find that, uh, if you’re lucky, you work with people who are, who only want the best for you. So generosity and talent galore are things that really helped me kind of get through that.
Thinking of something that Dan Sullivan said to me in a direction that I’ll never, ever forget. Took me a while to understand it. We were doing a scene where my character, Jamie, is getting very upset about something. And Dan is just an expert at kind of just boiling it down. Um, I never worked with Mike Nichols, but I imagine he’s similar to that and his ability to kind of get right to the issue. And he said, “don’t hide behind your Irish”. Don’t behind your Irish. What does that mean? He’s like, “just don’t, don’t hide behind your Irish”. And I think I understand what he was saying now is just, you know, there’s a kind of, there’s a kind of sardonic humour that comes out to mask pain, and to mask upset, and I think I was reverting to that as opposed to just living in the actual thing. So, uh, that’s something that I’ll never forget. I mean, talk about an expert director just kind of making, jarring you out of your, out of your usual routine, just saying, making you think about something to hopefully make you better. Dan Sullivan is the best. I love this play.”