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The playwright may intend to be evenhanded, but the humor tends to be the giveaway.
A enters first, a flibbertigibbet narrating an Instagram live video as she tours Ns office.
When N arrives, A turns around in shocked surprise: Where did you come from?
Baltimore, N deadpans, to a big laugh from the crowd the night I saw it.
Guess where this dramas sympathies lie.
The wits, and most of the plays will, tilt solidly in Ns favor.
Correa depicts A as idealistic but exceedingly naive.
He, like N, appears to believe in the ineffable magic of working out a deal through centrism.
That got a big round of applause the night I saw the play.
But if its possible to lay that aside,N/Awears quickly as a drama.
Its claustrophobic, and ultimately boring; the structure traps the performers in limited caricatures.
Holland Taylor specializes in playing toughened older women whether as aprofessor inLegally BlondeorTexas governor Ann Richards.
That approach tends to chop Ana Villafane, who plays A, right up.
Villafanes done musicals (she wasGloria Estefan inOn Your Feet!)
and her angle on A turns the congresswoman into something of a flustered theater kid.
after each N zingerbut its ultimately a disservice to Pelosi, too.
Let her be wrong, regretful, contradictory, something!
You do contemplate the state of our Republic, she tells her elder rival.
Because I see now… Youre terrified.
So much for a battle of the wills.
Its well beyond clear, by that point, that only one side has any ammunition here.
N/Ais at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater through September 1.
