Bullet Review — “N/A” at the Mitzi E. Newhouse, Lincoln Center
Holland Taylor, as Nancy Pelosi (N) and Ana Villafañe as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (A) create realistically imagined private moments, along a story arc of the evolving relationship between these two tough as nails, sharp as tacks, political trailblazers at mirror image stages of their careers from 2018 to 2022 in this new play at the Lincoln Center Mitzi E. Newhouse theater.
The play succeeds because of the superb acting and razor sharp writing by Congressional aide, turned playwright, Mario Correa who has created intensely personal 3-dimensional images of these two history changing powerhouses. Images that include a moment when N the master tactical vote counter melts into doting grandma on a phone call at her desk and the horrifying scene when A the uncompromising fighter for economic and environmental justice is weeping on the floor of a Congressional Office Building closet on January 6, convinced that death was at hand.
Neither Pelosi nor Ocasio-Cortez’s name is ever mentioned but it’s easy to forget that we are not actually eavesdropping on those two extraordinary women as they take the measure of each other. It would be interesting to see how this play is received by audiences from outside the bubble of its Lincoln Center, Upper West Side home and to be there on the night that N and/or A are in the house.
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A friend sent me this negative review in NY Magazine’s Vulture newsletter, by film critic Jackson McHenry.
https://www.vulture.com/article/theater-review-na-pelosi-aoc-lincoln-center.html
McHenry’s take is that the play is biased towards N. He thought the portrayal of A was a dismissal of her as “exceeding naive”. McHenry inexplicably opens his review with an account of the initial interaction between N and A in which A is a “flibbertigibbet narrating an Instagram live video”. For Mr. McHenry giving N the laugh line in this scene was emblematic of a generational bias. I don’t agree.
He is annoyed that the play’s tilt is in favor of N as the serious politician and A as less serious and “obsessed with her followers on social media, unwilling to compromise her stances for the sake of effective coalition-building”. I dont’ agree.
Notwithstanding McHenry’s impressive credentials as a real critic in contrast to this wannabe critic with no credentials whatsoever, I will now play the age card. He objects to N’s monologue about “a generation of navel gazers”. It could be that I agree with N’s generational take down because I’m old and McHenry disagrees because he is young but I think he is missing the larger picture of the historical contrast between generations. This play is about two very serious forces to be reckoned with that occupy the same stage for a relatively short time . A is portrayed as a brilliant serious player and not the victim of a generational mugging.
His narrow criticism that he would have liked a “rehash of the 2016 election” is oddly micro. A’s character does embody a single minded commitment to principals and the making of a better world . She is a marked contrast to N’s old school hard boiled liberal politics but a scene near the end sums it all up. Its just after January 6 and the Speaker of the House has walked into A’s office to see how she is doing and A’ apologetically explains that she has to race off to a very important interview. N politely slows things down and asks A about her future and what she wants — Speaker? President”. This scene is a reflection of the respect and affection between these two women including N’s compassion for A’s Jan 6 nightmare. It powerfully captures a moment of recognition that the baton, and perhaps someday the gavel, is being willingly passed to the future and it’s in very capable hands.
