Oscar E Moore

OUR TOWN has a new look.  Integrated.

Dr. Gibbs and family are black.  And fit in just as natural as the white folks next door.  The Webbs.  Color doesn’t matter as we all share the same emotions and problems and solutions.

This three act, three hour plus play has been streamlined down to 105 intermission-less minutes.  And is just the tonic Broadway has needed to reinvigorate itself back to life in this rejuvenated, revisal of Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize winning drama in 1938.

On a simple, quite functional barn like set by Beowulf Boritt – sit various members of the audience.  In pews.  Stage right and stage left.  Like a town meeting.  Assembled to hear the goings on in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire.  Years 1901 through 1913.

A few chairs and tables suffice as décor.  A choir sings.  A deaf milkman, Howie Newsome (a terrific John McGrath) delivers his goods using sign language to communicate.   A local drunk staggers home.  The gossipy scene stealing Julie Halston brings a roar of laughter from us.

High above a striking galaxy of golden lanterns glow that seem to be a link to the universe or stars in heaven by lighting designer Allen Lee Hughes.

Director Kenny Leon has worked his magic to bring this period piece right up to the present.  We can all connect with and absorb the words and wisdom of Mr. Wilder of this timeless classic.

As the stage manager/narrator Jim Parsons is extraordinary.  He keeps the momentum going and holds together this entire production.  Keeps it grounded as the diverse company of actors – all superb – relate what should be important in living our lives.  To what really matters.  To connect with one another.  Enjoy the simple things.  To pay attention to one another.  No cell phones.  No internet.  Human face to face contact.  To really listen and to pay attention to one another.  To take notice of what should be important to us as we live and understand and love.

Before we know it, it’s over.  The play.  And life.

A LIMITED ENGAGEMENT.  Through January 19, 2025.  Plan a visit.

At the Ethel Barrymore Theatre

PHOTO:  Daniel Rader

*MY REVIEW OF THE DAVID CROMER PRODUCTION 3/7/2009

Thornton Wilder’s Our Town – Timeless Classic Off B’way

Oscar E Moore from the rear mezzanine for Talk Entertainment.com

What if you were “weaned away from life” while giving birth to your second child and after being buried amongst family and friends in the local cemetery you wanted to return home to have one last look at what happened on your twelfth birthday because you were just not ready “not to wake up”.  That’s Emily Webb’s third act dilemma in the most wonderful production of Thornton Wilder’s OUR TOWN which has been given a remarkable and inventive revival at the Barrow Street Theatre, under the inspired and most original, fluid direction of David Cromer who also appears as the Stage Manager.

The Barrow Street Theatre has been reformatted – audience is on three sides of the small center acting area.  It is akin to attending a community meeting of the population of Grover’s Corner in the high school gymnasium.  Two tables and some chairs make do for the set.  The overhead lights, hardly theatrical lighting, are kept up throughout most of the first act, then they are dimmed.  The actors intermingle with the audience.  Walking between the aisles and you feel that you are an integral part of the intimate proceedings.  Thornton Wilder must be chatting up a storm with his cemetery friends about this one.  It is absolutely astounding.

With searing honesty the cast of twenty four with the able assist of the Stage Manager who breaks the action and the fourth wall – speaking to the audience and explaining and commenting on the action we are transformed into this world where family values come first. Where we witness the lives of Dr. Gibbs and newspaper editor Charles Webb and their respective families.  We feel the emotions that young Emily Webb and her neighbor young George Gibbs are experiencing through homework assignments, ice cream sodas, baseball practice, love and marriage, death and loss.  A vivid time capsule of all their lives – from 1901 through 1913.

A thousand years from now this play will still resonate with its real and heartfelt sentiments.  This is the way they were, living and dying.  This is what is really important.  Being happy with your loved ones.  How life should be valued.  It all passes too quickly.

Every family should see this incredibly moving production where we are told that in order to love life we have to have life and to have life we have to love life and that we should not be blind to what is important.  To really look at each other to really listen to one another and to love one another before it is no longer possible to do that.  It’s a beautifully written, theatrical text that is brought to its full potential by this incredible ensemble cast.

Our Town is a must see.

www.barrowstreettheatre.com   www.ourtownoffbroadway.com

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