“N/A”, Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, Lincoln Center

Glenda Frank  in New York
25 July 2024

For almost a decade, some of the best theatre has been played out on the world stage. Macron’s gamble (“I threw my live grenade at their feet”) in scheduling an earlier election to counter an upsurge in the Far Right; the “catastrophic” British veer left after 14 years of conservative rule; the American circus with its many twists and turns leading to a high-stakes election this November. (One journalist called Biden’s choice Shakespearean: there is indeed scope for machinations, tragedy or perhaps some neat plot unravelling with a happy ending.)

Ana Villafañe as A.
Photo credit: Daniel Rader.

Building upon the public’s enduring obsession with politics, playwright Mario Correa, (a former congressional aide) brings us N/A at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center, a brilliantly conceived political two-hander about the relationship between N (inspired by Nancy Pelosi, the former Democratic Speaker of the House), and A (inspired by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman to serve in the United States Congress).

N is played by Holland Taylor, who, after many credits and awards, secured even more admirers as Ann Richards in Ann, the one-woman show she wrote about the governor of Texas. Ana Villafañe, who plays A, looks and sounds enough like AOC to make for an easy suspension of disbelief.

Correa calls N/A a play of ideas so it was wise to enlist Diane Paulus, artistic director of A.R.T., to direct. Not only is her feminist resume beyond question – she directed Amaluna, a much praised mostly female (including musicians) Cirque du Soleil show, but she also excels in commercial theatre as well, earning a 2013 Tony Award for Pippin, 2009 Drama Desk Award for Hair, and 2011 Elliot Norton Award for Prometheus Bound and Johnny Baseball. Her blocking on the nearly bare stage (Myung Hee Cho, set) is natural and dynamic. Her actors keep the drama high and the comedy light but not underplayed. N/A, slated to close in July, has been extended through September.

It’s fun to read the other reviewers. N/A is a political Rorschach test, with critics advising Correa how to rework the play: “Include this”, “Add more of that”, “Shift the balance here”.  But the play is all grown-up, not a draft, and the central dynamic is mentor/novice or even old school mother and troublesome daughter. N/A is more than a reflection of the news or an argument in favor of one stance over the other. It’s more than conversations of extraordinary women at loggerheads or two well-articulated political viewpoints. Both women change because they listen, and what the other woman says helps them grow. (Pelosi is the first woman to lead a major political party in either house of Congress, serving 2003-2023, and AOC is a born reformer, a firebrand who handily defeated the Democratic machine incumbent.)

The play opens with a first meeting between N and A. N is ready to orient the upstart. She begins with a curious question: “Can you guess my favourite number?” A is bewildered and she guesses single-digit prime numbers. “218,” say N, this the number of votes needed in the House to pass legislation.

A is schooled. The audience is schooled. Keep your eye on the prize or nothing gets done is a maxim. But A has different criteria, and as she talks to the old school, the burned-out generation, the hacks – whatever categories she thinks N belongs to – she inspires us because she believes. She is charming, articulate, and she has done her research. Both women are right. Both are persuasive. But it’s all about proportions.

And so the play unfolds, issue by issue, the women in dialogue, not lecturing or accusing or mouthing off to take up stage space. Sometimes they are angry, sometimes defiant, whatever makes good theatre. The roles call upon the actors not to lean on the words but to bring dimension to them, and they have the chops to do just that.

In the end, N recognizes A’s potential, suggesting that she consider someday becoming Speaker. I was moved – by the play and by the passion of both women.