Escalation Time
Written by Francesca Root-Dodson; Directed by Molly Shayna Cohen
Studio 17 | 13 W 17th Street New York, NY 10011
November 7th-23rd 2025
How often do you ever have a conversation with your significant other that tests the moral boundary you never knew each other had? Certainly, with X amount of years in marriage, one would assume you know your significant other, but there comes a certain time in history, or a divide among a nation or nations, so great that even family, friends, and relationships are challenged. How familiar are you now of hearing on social media about people “unfollowing” or “defriending” the people they knew for years just from political differences? This is our reality now, where the virtual world bleeds into the real, overshadowing it. The time is here, and it is unmistakably now.
Escalation Time by Francesca Root-Dodson presents what many Americans, or those around the world, are facing daily: conflict with the inner self, a relationship to the environment around them, and, most importantly, how one relates to the other. It is a poignant portrayal of our modern-day society at conflict, wrestling with a bitter battle of the world at large.
For 80 minutes, you are at the edge of your seat, watching two people with immense passion and wonderful chemistry eventually find themselves at odds when their very moral and ethical codes are questioned. The play introduces two married Columbia University professors, Zev (Scott Shepherd) and Kate portrayed by the playwright Francesca Root-Dodson, both from different backgrounds but with a common goal: to educate future generations and enlighten them with their own perspective and thinking.
The theatrical space and set design welcomes the intimacy, which is highly recommended and needed for a play such as this. Seated around the stage, you see the most simple yet effective stage design and lighting to portray the comforts of one’s own home. No detail is spared, including the type of books surrounding the edges, creating an educational cacophony of intellectual chaos clashing with superiority, the true definition of what erudites wrestle with, maintaining humility yet knowing their higher perspective gives a slight or major edge in society.
Escalation Time risks the highest stakes in its interrogation of Sev and Kate’s moral high ground versus the lofty demands of their profession, even when those demands force them to take a backseat to their own beliefs. At a few moments, the play brushes against the drudgery of being borderline didactic; however, swift scene changes and meaningful, grounded dialogue pull us back into the urgency of the conversation and the undeniable elephant in the room.
Sev lacks the empathetic qualities that might allow an audience to fully root for him; his overbearing, authoritative posture can feel unyielding. Yet, when we strip away the bones of his character and examine the humanity beneath, the playwright succeeds in guiding us toward the greater concerns driving him, concerns that resonate sharply with our present world. By the same token, we don’t get quite enough insight into who Kate is on her own terms. Her sudden shift in political stance feels slightly sideways, in part because we spend so little time with her independent from Sev.
If there were any suggestion for further impact, it would be to deepen the emotional stakes between the two. The ending arrives with an abruptness that hints at unresolved attempts, or perhaps an absence of attempts, to salvage their marriage. Strengthening that thread might elevate the play’s final beats from compelling to devastating.
The play atmospherically creates a space to truly reflect, through the eyes of the characters, on how political beliefs and impressions affect the dynamics that surround them. We can all see ourselves in this intimate portrayal and dynamic between a married couple. The dialogue, never dull, is rich and dense with euphemisms. Root-Dodson creates a world in which one can truly believe the Ivy League landscape; fragile egos, intellectual dysphoria, and yet a common drive to serve and influence those around them.
The beauty of the play lies in this: no matter how you relate or which side you choose, you walk away questioning, Is it all worth it? Is your principle or your belief enough to potentially die for or leave the life you know for? The playwright seems to welcome the audience to interpret how their own uncertainty becomes clearer with the progression of the play. What you came to believe you thought you knew becomes further examined in a complex moral diode from which you must find your way out or do you?
For those who are morally ambiguous, you will find this play ultimately pushing you to find the passion to pick a side. Or better yet, realizing that it is your civic duty to truly relate to the world in which you participate, without ever hiding beneath those who are poor, powerless, voiceless, and without the privilege or platform you perhaps provide. Escalation Time holds a mirror and asks you to reflect at the fractures of the current event of our time without flinching.
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Review by Bianca Lopez.
Published by Theatre Beyond Broadway on November 22, 2025 All rights reserved.