Backstage: Scars of war in ‘Time Stands Still’; ‘Religion Thing’; ‘Hedda Gabler’

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The first thing you notice when you look at the poster for Studio Theatre’s “Time Stands Still” is the right side of Holly Twyford’s face.

Twyford has been a staple in Washington theater for almost 20 years. In “Time Stands Still,” she plays Sarah, an injured photojournalist just back home from Iraq. Half of her body bears the marks of a shrapnel explosion, deep red slices across one side of her forehead, along the line of her jaw, down to the top of her chest.

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  • ( C. Stanley Photography / Courtesy of Theater J ) - Chris Stezin, Liz Mamana, Kimberly Gilbert and Will Gartshore in Theater J’s “The Religion Thing.”
  • ( Hunter Styles / Courtesy of Studio Theatre ) - Makeup artist Skip Smith gives Holly Twyford the scars sustained by her character, a photographer home from Iraq.
  • ( Amy Kellett / ) - Kerry Waters and Jim Jorgensen star in “Hedda Gabler.”

( C. Stanley Photography / Courtesy of Theater J ) - Chris Stezin, Liz Mamana, Kimberly Gilbert and Will Gartshore in Theater J’s “The Religion Thing.”

She’s scarred. There’s something visceral about the noun-as-verb, how something that sits on the surface of your skin can become this active descriptor of who you are, of what happened to you, of what you’ll be carrying around forever.

“I think I read this script right around when Tim Hetherington was killed,” said Twyford, referring to the photographer-filmmaker who was fatally wounded in Libya last spring. “And I was immediately struck by how timely this was.”

When we spoke, Twyford had worn the scars only twice. “I can barely feel them if I don’t touch them,” she said. “I’m looking forward to having them on.”

Skip Smith, the makeup artist for “Time Stands Still,” described the process of designing the scars. “I asked the director [Susan Fenichell], ‘How intense do you want this?’ Because this is not a horror makeup. . . . It’s more of a disfigurement.”

“I developed a stencil system,” Smith explained. “Using soft vinyl material, I cut the shapes of the shrapnel scars and the stencil matches up underneath her eye, up to her ear, and another fits on her jaw up to her neck. And there’s another that’s a general stencil to place all over.” The scars take 30 to 40 minutes to apply. “We’re also using a plasticized scar material for some of the scars to give a raised look that’s more realistic.”

The end result, though not “like a ‘Phantom of the Opera’ reveal” as Smith said, is still a striking one. It’s hard to look away.

But Twyford says Sarah’s struggles don’t revolve around appearance. “She’s not ashamed. . . . There’s a line in the play, someone says to her, ‘There’s surgery to remove the scars if they bother you.’ And Sarah says, ‘They don’t.’ I think she’s being honest there.”

Wednesday to Feb. 12, 1501 14th St. NW, www.studiotheatre.org, 202-332-3300.

Unfaithful

“The Religion Thing” is the inaugural play in Theater J’s “Locally Grown” festival, featuring work by D.C. area playwrights. The show, which opens Wednesday, focuses on two couples: one an interfaith husband and wife and the other their longtime friend, a recent born-again Christian, and her new honey, whom she met at a church mixer. The evangelicals are devout in their devotion to both God and each other.

Chris Stezin, plays “a non-observant Jewish guy married to a lapsed Catholic,” half of a couple who, as they age, “begin to miss the rituals of their childhoods and, I think, the substance that observing those rituals lends. . . . They try to navigate this minefield.”

Renee Calarco, the playwright, described herself as “Jewish and somewhat observant. . . . My mother is Jewish. My father was Catholic and he converted before marrying my mother. So half of my extended family is Catholic.

 
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