Barlow Adamson, Erica Spyres, Jeremiah Kissel and Laura Latreille

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies explores these challenging questions in Time Stands Still, his 2010 Tony-nominated play about Sarah and James, a photojournalist and a foreign correspondent trying to recover and rebuild their lives following a near-death experience while on assignment in Iraq. Safe at home in their loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, they maneuver around a metaphorical minefield to figure out what kind of life they want and whether it will be as a couple or if they will go their separate ways. At its core, the story demands that each character search his or her soul to determine their purpose in life and the extent of their responsibility to others.

With a deft touch, Scott Edmiston directs the Lyric Stage Company production featuring Laura Latreille and Barlow Adamson as the couple facing an important crossroads in their personal and professional lives, and Jeremiah Kissel and Erica Spyres as their good friend and publisher Richard and his new, young girlfriend Mandy. While Sarah and James struggle to acclimate themselves to unfamiliar, normal domesticity, Richard and Mandy are also on the cusp of uncharted territory, which for them involves matters of the heart. Creating the visual and aural surroundings for this intense story are Scenic Designer Janie E. Howland, Lighting Designer Karen Perlow, Costume Designer Elisabetta Polito and Sound Designer Dewey Dellay.

When the play opens, James has brought Sarah home to recuperate after her brush with death in the form of a roadside bomb. Her indigenous aide or "fixer" was killed in the attack and James was not in country at the time. He had left for home some weeks earlier, suffering from shell shock, but returned to Iraq when Sarah was injured. Now he is making up for it by being her caretaker and protector. She is strapped into a full-length gizmo on her stiff leg, requires a single crutch and has numerous facial abrasions as external evidence of her wounds; her emotional damage is less clear, but she is prone to nasty outbursts. It becomes evident that her work is a calling, a way of life, and she really doesn't have an identity without it.

James is more suited to the domestic life and finds other projects to pursue. In an interesting parallel to the war stories that he has covered in the past, he researches and writes a piece on horror films and how they can offer catharsis for their desensitized viewers. When he witnesses Richard's joy in his surprising relationship with Mandy and their commitment to marry and have a child, James wants to get married, too. He and Sarah have been together more than eight years, but he needs to convince her that their marriage will be different than her parents' and that now is the time. What James ultimately succeeds in proving is that he is ready to move on, but, for Sarah, time stands still.

Adamson and Latreille portray the conflicts between the two characters with great detail and nuance. They show an intimacy that reflects the length of time the couple has been together, but it seems most genuine when they fight, less so when the script calls for them to be amorous. Latreille is a jumble of emotions, shifting on a dime. She is harsh one moment when Sarah thinks she's being patronized, and softens when she and Mandy talk about her fixer. James has a tendency to walk on eggshells around Sarah, requiring Adamson to shrink at times. Yet he is able to rise to full strength when it is time to do battle.

Kissel is totally natural in the role of Richard, walking the line between employer and friend, but always acting out of love and a sense of responsibility for Sarah. I don't think I've ever seen him give anything less than a solid performance, and here the veteran actor exhibits his knack for taking on the persona of the character at the same time as his own shines through. The challenge for the actress playing Mandy is not to fall prey to the inherent characterization of her as a lightweight. Spyres has an underlying, quiet strength that informs her portrayal and brings out Mandy's substance very early on, but with restraint. This is somewhat different than the interpretation of Christina Ricci (in the Broadway production), who stayed with the daffy aspect a bit longer, but I like what Spyres does with the character.

In Time Stands Still, Margulies uses the characters of Sarah and James to give us insight into a world that is foreign to most of us, and I don't mean Iraq in particular or war zones in general. Rather, I am referring to the journalistic world in which professionals think it is necessary to take great risks in order to bear witness and provide evidence, to document events, and, as Sarah says, "to record life, not change it." If you think of some of the iconic photographic images you've seen during your lifetime, many have shown disturbing acts of violence, starving children, or areas devastated by natural disasters. You may have wondered how the person behind the camera could shoot those pictures without assisting the victims. If you listen to Sarah, that's exactly what she's doing.

Performances through March 17 at Lyric Stage Company, 140 Clarendon Street, Boston; Box Office 617-585-5678 or www.lyricstage.com.

Time Stands Still Written by Donald Margulies, Directed by Scott Edmiston, Scenic Design by Janie E. Howland, Costume Design by Elisabetta Polito, Lighting Design by Karen Perlow, Sound Design by Dewey Dellay; Production Stage Manager, Nerys Powell; Assistant Stage Manager, Cat Dunham Meilus

Photo: Mark S. Howard