Divided time, acting quotient

It is hardly unusual for an actor to keep an eye on the camera while being photographed but Anna Gunn's obsession seems to have less to do with vanity than research.

As a make-up artist fusses with Gunn's red mane during a recent photo session at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, Gunn seems less interested in flattering angles than in grilling the photographer about how the camera works — and where she might go to improve her shooting skills after finishing her present role as a photojournalist in the world premiere of Donald Margulies's play Time Stands Still.

“Part of what I love about acting is it allows me to get inside people's minds,'' Gunn says.

“With this role especially, since I'm interested in photography and photojournalists, I couldn't get enough.

“The sense that it's opened up for me is personal responsibility: It's important to bear witness. It's important for people to know.''

Margulies's drama tells the story of war photographer Sarah (Gunn) and her boyfriend, print journalist James (David Harbour), whose relationship is thrown into crisis after Sarah is wounded on the job by a roadside bomb.

The incident occurs after James has fled the combat zone with a crippling case of post-traumatic stress disorder. When Sarah returns home to recuperate, neither is sure whether a relationship forged in war can survive ordinary domestic life.

And the pair have wildly different reactions to the choice of their middle-aged editor friend (portrayed by Robin Thomas) to marry Mandy (Alicia Silverstone), a young Pollyanna who is horrified by Sarah's photos and can't understand her compulsion to get the shot instead of trying to help the subject.

Some critics have quibbled about the polemical manner in which playwright Margulies, a Pulitzer prize- winner for Dinner With Friends, presents the multiple ethical issues in Time Stands Still.

But they have embraced Gunn's performance as one that transcends that perceived weakness in the script.
New York Times critic Charles Isherwood writes:

“Gunn's quietly centred but passionate performance helps keep us attuned to the human being beneath the lofty principles.''

Times theatre critic Charles McNulty, who calls Gunn's performance a “standout'', writes that her “deeply inhabited portrayal reconciles the play's zigzagging public and private concerns.''

Gunn — whose theatre roles include playing opposite Jeremy Piven in Uncommon Ground and starring as Isabella at the Ahmanson Theatre in downtown Los Angeles in the Peter Hall-directed Measure for Measure — has heard people react coldly to Sarah, whose drive to expose the horrors of war often causes her to neglect her emotions.

But the actress says she loves the character.

“She is an unapologetically flawed person, and that makes me like her even more,'' Gunn says. “She's a real, grown-up woman and I think it's fantastic to be able to play her.

Margulies tapped Gunn for the role after seeing her in an LA Theatre Works radio theatre production of his play Sight Unseen. “I thought she was remarkable,'' he says.

“It seems that the women that I write are all complicated — they are all smart and funny and have a kind of intelligence,'' Margulies says.

“They're also attractive, many of them. And Anna seemed to embody all of those qualities.''

Gunn's life is the polar opposite of Sarah's. While the 40-ish Sarah cannot reconcile her profession with marriage and children, Gunn has been successful in combining family life with career.

She is reticent about family details and declines to give the names of her husband and their two girls.

But she credits the children with helping her understand the Sarah and the Mandy points of view about how best to deal with the injustices of the world.

“My 8-year-old asks: ‘Why is it that way?' Or, ‘Why is there a war? What are they fighting about?' I find that I have to explain that in a fairly fundamental way with a child.

"The children know they have a very comfortable life and then they see people living in the street. They don't know what to do with that,'' the actress says.

“Mandy says: ‘What am I supposed to do? I can't save everybody,''' Gunn adds. “And that's true, but you can do small things. You say: ‘OK, let's see what we can do.' That has fed me.

“The fact is we need all of it — you can't have a steady diet of what is wrong and awful in the world. Part of the joy of having children is it gets me out of my head. I do my work and then I let it go and spend time with my children.''