Jim Parsons and the cast of Our Town (Photo: Daniel Rader)

 

Our Town

By Deirdre Donovan

Kenny Leon, director of the current streamlined revival of Thornton Wilder's Our Town at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, brings a fresh new interpretation to the classic. He takes the revered play and makes it into a multicultural theatrical statement that invites everybody to enjoy this hauntingly sublime work.

Our Town is an outlier in American drama. It brings most audience members to tears; others say it's too sweet for one sitting. Even so, Wilder's masterpiece evokes all those shopworn superlatives that people use when they are truly moved by a work. The late playwright Edward Albee anointed it as the greatest American play ever written.

Leon's iteration features a cast of 28 actors. Starring the superb Jim Parsons as Stage Manager, along with an A-list cast, there is no shortage of stardust in this show. It returns to Broadway after a 22-year hiatus and becomes the fifth production of the iconic drama on the main stem. In fact, the last time it appeared on the Great White Way was at the Booth Theatre in 2002, with Paul Newman as Stage Manager. It was his last stage performance.

Beowulf Borrit's set, lit by Allen Lee Hughes, has a weathered, New England-y look. The stage floor and the back wall are made up of mottled wood. Overhead are old-fashioned lanterns that extend out over the orchestra. A few plain wood chairs are scattered across the stage, with some surreally levitated and affixed to the back wall. At stage left and right, there are pews, facing each other, that allow approximately 30 audience members to sit on stage. It gives a warm intimacy to the show, as these spectators are only an arm's length from the performers. A piano also is on stage, an indication that a bit of culture exists in the world of this play.

Leon opens his production with a prelude. It appears to be a soulful church gathering, with the entire cast worshipping as one. While it's surely a nod to the idea that these town's citizens are a God-fearing lot, it also drives home Leon's vision that Our Town belongs to everybody, regardless of race or color.

Billy Eugene Jones, Michelle Wilson (Photo: Daniel Rader)

The scenario:  A small American town in the early 20th century is presented here as emblematic of all that is righteous, decent, and good before the taint of the almighty dollar, technology, and worldliness clouded over our view. Wilder named it Grover's Corners and nestled his fictive hamlet in New Hampshire between 1901 and 1913.

 

Our Town is divided into three acts, which are simply named:  "Daily Life," "Love and Marriage," and "Death and Eternity." The story has nine central characters. First and foremost, there is the aforementioned Stage Manager who acts as the master of ceremonies and also doubles as a various town citizens. He will introduce the rest of the dramatis personae in this metatheatrical play, giving us vital details about where they live and what they do.

On one side of an imagined street, there's Mr. Webb (Richard Thomas) the editor and publisher of the town newspaper; his wife Mrs. Webb (Katie Holmes); their daughter Emily (Zoey Deutch); and their son Wally (Hagan Oliveras). On the other side of this street lives Doc Gibbs (Billy Eugene Jones) with his wife, Mrs. Gibbs (Michelle Wilson), their son George (Ephraim Sykes), and daughter Rebecca (Safiya Kaijya Harris). The Stage Manager eventually describes the rest of the town folk, who step in and out of the action and contribute to the general character of the village. Some characters, like Mr. Webb, will be invited by the Stage Manager to lecture as the local expert on the town and its inhabitants. Still, it's ultimately Emily and George's relationship that pulls on our heartstrings, as their relationship transmutes from childhood friendship, to courtship and marriage, and then tragedy.

 

Ephraim Sykes, Zoey Deutch (Photo: Daniel Rader)

The acting is excellent. In the key role of Stage Manager, Parsons is well cast as the understated and detached narrator. Billy Eugene Jones imbues his Dr. Gibbs with tireless self-sacrifice and a deep passion for Civil War history. Katie Holmes, as Mrs. Webb, is the soul of good sense and femininity. Ephraim Sykes, as George Gibbs, embodies the all-American boy. Richard Thomas is well-cast as the well-informed newspaper editor Mr. Webb. Michelle Wilson's Mrs. Webb, with her itch for travel, adds some welcome comic relief to the story. Zoey Deutch, in the key role of Emily, is the epitome of a young and gifted girl who embraces her destiny, first with a dewy naïveté and, later on, an achingly sad wisdom.

The play clocks in at a brisk 100 minutes. Leon has incredibly pared down Wilder's play to its bare bones without losing its substance and profundity. Indeed, those looking for an Our Town that captures both our social memory and today's cultural moment should make a beeline to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

Our Town

At the Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th. St.

For more information, visit ourtownbroadway.com

Running time: 100 minutes with no intermission

Through January 19