| . | 09/14/2009
Our Town
By: Joel Benjamin
George Gibbs and Jennifer Grace
Photo by Carol Rosegg
Just when you felt that you have seen enough productions of the old chestnut, Our Town by Thornton Wilder, comes along David Cromer’s brilliantly thoughtful reassessment. Helped by a large cast of finely nuanced actors and a resourceful design team, this is an Our Town for our time, a production that clearly places this fine work of American drama in the genealogy of modern theater up there with Beckett, Ionesco and Albee in its philosophy of life and its cleansing of theatrical detritus.
The cozy Barrow Street Theatre, within the Greenwich House in the Village, is a perfect location. The seating is arranged in a three-quarter round with the action of the play taking place throughout the house, but mostly in the center.
One of the reasons that Our Town is performed so much and has fallen into the realm of sweet, simple Americana, is that the play is written to be staged with only the most basic of sets, on a mostly bare stage, allowing generations of high school drama departments to highlight--and wear out--the play’s supposedly warm look at humanity, American Style. Mr. Cromer follows the playwright’s dictum and uses only plain tables, chairs and simple props which become the houses of the Webb and Gibbs families, dormer windows, the soda fountain and the church wherein the lead couple, Emily and George get married but then takes his company into an entirely different realm.
At first the actors, led by the handsome and straight-forward Stage Manager of Jason Butler Harner (taking over for the sadly absent Mr. Cromer), are annoyingly casual: dressing in 2009 street garb, talking in all sorts of accents, except the thick New England accent of Grovers Corners where Wilder places the action and behaving in offhand ways that belie Mr. Cromer’s deft vision. After a while the genius of this production becomes clear and wafts over the audience in waves of real-life emotions. These aren’t just stereotypical New Englanders showing musty embroidered-sampler emotions, but three-dimensional and all-too-real people who are as overwhelmed by life as the audience and who express a full range of emotions and thoughts, way beyond Wilder’s seemingly simplistic lines. This Stage Manager is not just a warm host, but Wilder’s alter-ego, an all-to-human Greek chorus who is more than a casual observer and storyteller. He embodies Thornton Wilder’s and David Cromer’s view of humanity in this microcosm of Grovers Corners, a view that is bleakly sad while uplifting at the same time.
This is the first production of Our Town with both sensuality and hints of overt sexuality. George Gibbs (James McMenamin) is both hunky and awkward in his adolescence and Jennifer Grace’s Emily Webb grows into full-bodied womanhood right before our eyes. The scene when they supposedly first discover their deep love for each other is full of glances and near touches. George’s sister, Rebecca (Ronete Levenson) is not afraid of crawling into his lap in one of the window scenes. She must have done this often, but this time, George, aware of his changing body, almost pulls away from her, though he clearly loves his little sibling. Both sets of Webb and Gibbs parents relate with subtle physical ease which comes of being together for decades, sharing meals and beds. Mrs. Webb (Kati Brazda) is full-bodied and more brazen than Mrs. Gibbs (Lori Myers) who is slightly more cultured and therefore less happy with her fate. Their husbands are similarly different: Mr. Gibbs, the harried doctor, is more defeated and enervated by life than the more avuncular Mr. Webb, the editor of the local newspaper.
Jeremy Beiler’s Simon Stimson, the church organist and choir director, barely contains his wrath at the silly locals who offhandedly destroy his beautiful music which is his only salvation. Mrs. Soames (Susan Bennett), who famously loves weddings, has a desperate tone. When she is seen as one of the dead in the cemetery scene—the heart of the play—she repeats her “lovely wedding” line, this time laden with painful irony.
Mr. Cromer puts this famous cemetery scene into an almost existential realm, emphasizing Wilder’s cynical side. When Emily tries to revisit a day in her life, she literally pulls the curtain on the scene revealing a coup de theatre that is not only dramatically astute, but also reveals as never before, Wilder’s philosophy that life is never lived fully and never observed, absorbed and appreciated. By illuminating Emily’s revelation so completely, Mr. Cromer turns Our Town into a powerhouse, equal, if not surpassing the heavy-handed sturm und drang of his contemporary, Eugene O’Neill. And by not wallowing in George’s widower’s angst, overlapping it with the Stage Manager’s final tossed-off farewell, this Our Town becomes harrowingly modern and strangely inspiring.
Barrow Street Theatre,17 Barrow St. 212) 868-4444.
The Cast: (alphabetically) Jeremy Beiler, Robert Beitzel, Susan Bennett, Kati Brazda, Nathan Dame, George Demas, Jennifer Grace, Jason Butler Harner, Wilbur Edwin Henry, Adam Hinkle, Jake Horowitz, Ronete Levenson, Ken Marks, James McMenamin, Lori Myers, Jay Russell, Armand Schultz, Jason Yachanin
Directed by David Cromer
Scenic Design: Michele Spadaro
Costume Design: Alison Siple
Lighting Design: Heather Gilbert
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