By: Paulanne Simmons
June 28, 2024: N/A, Mario Correa’s excellent and absorbing drama making its premiere at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, is mostly a debate. But it’s a debate that will grip you like no other. Ana Villafañe is N (more commonly known as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC) and Holland Taylor is A (better known as Nancy Pelosi). Together they are N/A (also known as Not Applicable, although it’s not clear what this has to do with the play).
Correa worked for years as a Congressional aide. And it shows. He certainly knows how to blend wit and wisdom. Diane Paulus’s deft direction makes this two-hander work better than most others.
The play takes place from 2018, when N has been newly elected to the House, to 2020, in the aftermath of the mid-term elections, when A must surrender her beloved gavel for the last time. Both are feisty and opinionated, but while A is practical and experienced (her favorite number is 218, the number of votes needed to get a bill passed), N is idealistic and perhaps unrealistic (she believes working outside the system is the way to get things done).
The two women are separated not only by age but also by race. N is of Puerto Rican descent and A is of Italian descent. Some may believe N’s frequent use of the race card and the word “privilege’ is justified. Others may find it annoying.
On a personal level, A is somewhat condescending and N is more than a little snotty and wise-assed. However, in their own way, each is perfectly sincere. Hence, there are no good guys and bad guys in this play, and no winners or losers. Except perhaps our country. But as the play implies, this remains to be seen.
Both N and A are humanized by the personal stories they tell. A says she was more influenced by her mother than her father, even though she remembers clearly the day he was first sworn in as congressman. N was also influenced by her mother, who had to earn a living by cleaning houses after her husband died.
Myung Hee Cho has wisely kept the set to a minimum. The many scene changes indicating the advance of time are accomplished by Mextly Couzin’s lighting design, Sun Hee Kil’s sound design and Possible, Lisa Renkel’s projections. Kudos to the makeup artists who make the two women look so much like their unnamed real-life counterparts their own mothers might be confused.
It’s hard to imagine the real Pelosi would have devoted so much time to a freshman member, no matter how rebellious or useful she might have been. But N and A’s debates do make for powerful and provoking theater.
N/A *****
Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center
150 W. 65th Street, NYC
Through August 4, 2024
Photography: Daniel Rader
