Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...Georgette Verdin's modestly designed AstonRep production strips some of the affluence that informs Margulies's elite characters, and much of the act-one comedy feels underattended. At the play's emotional heights, though, leads Sara Pavlak McGuire and Robert Tobin generate undeniable tension."
Chicago On the Aisle - Highly Recommended
"...“Time Stands Still” is notable for an early scene in which young Mandy, horrified at the gory scenes of people about to die, demands to know why Sarah didn’t just put her camera down to help save a life. Sarah responds with one of the play’s revelatory monologues, both defending the purpose of documenting horrors the world needs to see, and also describing how – in the midst of chaos – time stops for her when she sees a shot."
Stage and Cinema - Recommended
"...Domesticity and danger, it seems, don't mix. The private and the public, small-scale versus big-issue matters, mingle uneasily in Time Stands Still, now in a persuasive Aston Rep revival staged by Georgette Verdin at Raven Theatre. (The play was first performed in Chicago in 2012 at Steppenwolf Theatre's upstairs stage in a somewhat passive staging by Austin Pendleton.) Donald Margulies' heavily freighted 2010 character drama covers too many issues as it focuses on a pivotal choice faced by a thrill-seeking, adrenaline junkie of a photojournalist."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...I'd like to know more about why Sarah cheated on James in Afghanistan after James returned to the US. Also why he accepted her story without rage since she is his soulmate yet she betrayed him? James took the news quite civilly. I would also like to know more about James' meltdown that forced him to leave Sarah in a war zone. This play is a tad underwritten but McGuire and Tobin's conflicting chemistry covers most of the gaps. We see that James is burned-out and wants to live peacefully while Sarah is ready to go cover war again. The fine acting makes up for the gaps in the script. This play is worth seeing."
Around The Town Chicago - Recommended
"...The title of the Donald Margulies play "Time Stands Still" would perhaps be more accurate if it were "James in Retrograde." Written in 2010 and being presented by AstonRep Theatre Company at Raven Theatre, this play, like most of Mr. Margulies' work, deals with loss, identity and the constantly shifting dynamics of interpersonal human relationships."
Picture This Post - Recommended
"...More than anything else, Time Stands Still is brought to life in this production by top-shelf acting. When Sarah and James (Sara Pavlak McGuire and Robert Tobin) fight and exchange pointed verbal volleys it flows from their beings with incredibly natural rhythms. They seem to give the lines more heft than they might have as standalones on the script page. Similarly, Rob Frankel makes Richard's sentimentality, simplicity and loyalties a perfect fit on his person. What a treat to spy Kirra Silver tramping home after the show, with two different colored socks, and a downward cast that proved her constantly-shining-face-of-cheer is an act, and a good one."
NewCity Chicago - Recommended
"..."I'm into events, too-war, famine, genocide," says photojournalist Sarah (Sara Pavlak McGuire), upon meeting this new young girlfriend of her editor and former lover, Richard (Rob Frankel). But the petty jealousies of ordinary lives are peripheral to Donald Margulies' 2009 Tony-nominated "Time Stands Still," a trenchant meditation on the trauma of witness and a study of the journalists who place themselves on the front lines to record stories most would rather not contemplate even from a safe distance."
