Holland Taylor plays Nancy Pelosi

It was not a good week for the team.

On Tuesday, US Representative Jamal Bowman (D-NY) lost his primary to remain in the House of Representatives. And on Thursday, another member of the progressive troupe suffered a heavy defeat. Mario Correa’s play “N/A” had its world premiere at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in Lincoln Center, and the character named A, who stands for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, lost heavily to the character named N, who stands for Nancy Pelosi.

Correa gives all of his best witty lines – and there are a lot of them – to N(ancy), and Holland Taylor knows exactly what to do with them. Her performance is a masterpiece of stand-up comedy, because she doesn’t let the very funny one-liners come across as witty lines. They’re just part of her character’s thick and well-honed armor. With her sparkling humor, she mops up the House of Representatives with A(lexandria), who, played by Ana Villafañe, comes across as a pompous and humorless Jimmy Stewart from “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

The battle is extremely uneven, as the old, experienced and very pragmatic Speaker of the House tries to give the young, inexperienced and very idealistic Congressman from Queens and the Bronx a master class in politics. Thirty minutes into this 80-minute play, you may be wondering when the playing field in DC will change. When will the outnumbered A(lexandria) finally get her big moment to score a point or two against the sober N(ancy)?

Taylor has her feet firmly planted on the ground; Villafañe spouts idealistic rhetoric about the Green New Deal and defunding ICE, which will decimate the Democrats’ majority in the House. And every argument ends (and often begins) with Taylor getting the laughs. There’s really no other way to play the lines, and under Diane Paulus’ direction, “N/A” soon reveals itself to be a one-sided comedy performance, with the deadly serious A(lexandria) having to upstage the alpha comedian N(ancy), who is hogging the spotlight.

Later in “N/A,” the playing field is leveled slightly when the U.S. Capitol is stormed by violent supporters of Donald Trump, bringing back old, horrific memories for A(lexandria), who immediately posts about it online. N(ancy) ends up calling her opponent “brave,” but in the end, good jokes always win more points with the audience than tears from the victim.