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With so much turmoil in the world, it's at least a little comforting that things haven't changed much in Grover's Corners, the place that gives Our Town, Thornton Wilder's beloved 1938 report from Smalltown USA, its name. People there are born, love and die without so much as looking up to savor what they have. That's life.
And while a check-in from the fictional New Hampshire town circa 1901-1913 is always a moving and welcome addition to anyone's frazzled day, the new staging by Kenny Leon, opening on Broadway tonight at the Ethyl Barymore Theatre with a cast that includes Jim Parsons, Katie Holmes, Richard Thomas, Billy Eugene Jones, Ephraim Sykes and Zoey Deutch, lacks the strong personality that would send it to the top of the many Our Towns that have staked claims on the world's stages for nearly a century.
Leon, a top-notch director who has done recent work that is both more exhilarating (Purlie Victorious) and more revelatory (Home), here makes a few attempts at diversifying and era-defying Wilder's classic without offering a complete re-think that might have brought fresher life to the theatrical chestnut.
On Beowulf Borritt's gorgeously simple set design - all distressed wooden planks, vertical and horizontal, beautifully lantern-lit by Allen Lee Hughes - that fits well with Wilder's preferred limited-scenery aesthetic - the large cast of actors from wildly disparate worlds forms a melting pot of Americana. Jim Parsons, who plays a charmingly deadpan Stage Manager, has long since made the jump from sitcom stardom to become one of New York's busiest stage actors, just as co-star Richard Thomas did years ago after he left The Waltons (one of the few popular entertainments that could rightly lay claim to rivaling Our Town in homespun sincerity). Katie Holmes has a nicely varied resume of TV, film and stage credits, Zoey Deutch makes her Broadway debut after a career largely in film, while Billy Eugene Jones, Ephraim Sykes and Michelle Wilson bring some serious stage chops to the proceedings. Downtown theater legend Julie Halston is on hand for the show's best comic moments.
True, few of the cast members are on stage long enough to make overlarge impressions, and those that are - with the exception of Parsons - don't always make the most of the opportunity. Holmes and Thomas are gentle presences but little more, Sykes and Deutch, as the childhood sweethearts who marry and, in the play's heart-tugging final segment, face life's final act, are better individually than together. (Deutch does fine, though, in her big scene at the end when, allowed a brief return to the earthly realm, her Emily learns the painful lessons of life's fragility and swiftness.)
The production's signature contribution to the Our Town legacy is a chancy meld of historical eras and cast demographics. The latter works well, with a mix of ethnicities and religions speaking cogently to the universality of Wilder's tale. The play's action is even preceded by the cast singing "Braided Prayer" by Abraham Jam, an initially cacophonic mix of Muslim, Jewish and Christian prayers and hymns that slowly coalesces into something lovely.
A later outburst of a modern-sounding smooth R&B gospel duet is more jarring than compelling, and the same might be said of Dede Ayite's costume design, which nods toward various decades - early 20th Century gentility for some of the adults, '90s sleeveless sweats, shorts and backwards caps for the teens, and some choices that just confound, most notably an unidentifiable blend of Desperately Seeking Susan Madonna and Meet Me In St. Louis Tootie for Deutch's doomed Emily.
The final section of Wilder's play - the three acts are performed without an intermission in this production, with Parson's Stage Manager having some fun explaining away any confusion - is one of American drama's most foolproof scenes, and Leon and his cast pull it off nicely. The gulf between the town's grief-stricken living and the cemetery's reconciled dead is at once harrowing and comforting. The juxtaposition just might be Wilder's greatest contribution to American drama, a case Leon's Our Town makes with conviction.
Title: Our Town
Venue: Broadway's Barrymore Theatre
Written By: Thornton Wilder
Directed By: Kenny Leon
Cast: Jim Parsons, Zoey Deutch, Katie Holmes, Billy Eugene Jones, Ephraim Sykes, Richard Thomas, Michelle Wilson, Julie Halston, Donald Webber Jr., with Ephie Aardema Sarnak, Heather Ayers, Willa Bost, Bobby Daye, Safiya Kaijya Harris, Doron JéPaul, Shyla Lefner, Anthony Michael Lopez, John McGinty, Bryonha Marie, Kevyn Morrow, Hagan Oliveras, Noah Pyzik, Sky Smith, Bill Timoney, Ricardo Vázquez, Matthew Elijah Webb, Greg Wood and Nimene Sierra Wureh.
Running time: 1 hr 45 min (no intermission)
