By Elyse Sommer

Laura Linney (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Donald Margulies' Time Stands Still has reopened at another Broadway theater for a welcome open run. The script of remains unchanged, and the three original actors are, if anything, better than ever.

Laura Linney again offers a master class in expressing feeling without saying a word —sort of a human equivalent of a picture that can say more than a thousand words. She also manages to make us relate to her character, even though she often comes across as less than sympathetic. d'Arcy James once again plays her partner with great feeling and conviction. John Lee Beatty's Williamsburg, Brooklyn loft has moved with every prop in place to the Cort Theater's stage.

I wish the questions asked about the ethical aspects of hot spot reportage, especially photographing scenes of people dying, had become less relevant in the eight months since that first viewing. Unfortunately there has been no diminishments in the scenes of violence and suffering for reporters like Sarah Goodwin and James Dodd to cover. The paralell story structure still resonates powerfully. The main counterpoint setup merges the globe trotting couple's dealing with the enforced hiatus to recover from his mental and her physical wounds on a war zone assignment and also the challenges of their 9-year relationship which James feels they should now legalize as a step towards the more normal, every day existence to which he finds himself drawn.

(Photo: Joan Marcus)

The additional counterpoint of their friend and editor Richard's newfound joy with Mandy a much younger woman omytpfivr the one new member of the cast, the Golden Globe and Emmy award nominated Christina Ricci as the object of Richard's affection. Ricci is cute as a button, and perhaps even more than Alicia Silverstone, the original Mandy, plays up the comic relief that this secondary relationship adds to the script. As the wide-eyed, naif who Sarah initially dismisses as a "lightweight" Ricci nails every aimed for laugh. Yet, she's also quite believable as someone with an outsider's very emotional perspective on Sarah's work. While Bogosian was clearly smitten with the original Mandy, his delight seems to have deepened and his defending t the relationship to Sarah and Jamie ("She's fun. . ! She's light. I discovered I like those things." )

The richly nuanced performances made seeing Time Stands Still a second time rewarding even though I knew what was going to happen as each scene flowed (fluidly as ever) into the next. It was also fun to hear some of the sharpest interchanges again; for example Sarah's wry response to Mandy's description of her job as an events planner ("I guess you can say I'm into events, too. Wars, famines, genocides. . ." ) of to the scars on one side of her face as her "Phantom of the Opera look."

Margulies' knows how to lighten serious issue, as in the amusing scene at the top of the second act when Jamie comments disgustedly on a play he and Sarah just saw which sent gales of laughter through the audience members who don't share his disdain for the theater). The laughs notwithstanding, this is not an easy, forget the world's and your own problems for two hours of relaxing entertainment. But it is a beautifully acted, finely staged thought provoking play. Isn't that what good theater is all about?

I'm posting this re-review on top of my original, as the details and my opinions remain unchanged.

New York Production Notes: Time Stands Still is now at Cort Theatre 138 West 48th Street
The design team is the same as at the Friedman theater.
This open run production had its official reopening on October 7, 2010
Ticket Price: $56.50 - $121.50
Running Time: 2 hours with an intermission
Tuesday 7:00pm, Wed to Sat 8pm, Wed and Sat at 2pm, Sunday at 3pm
Rereview based on 10/04/10 press preview
Closing 1/30/11 after 16 preview performances and 126 regular performances