Yesterday afternoon at the Barrymore I saw a preview of Kenny Leon’s new revival of Our Town, which has the unusual subtitle “For Our Time.”
It’s still early in the preview process for the show. Our Town doesn’t open until October 10th. So a lot could change. But I find it fascinating to watch a show in development. Here’s a couple thoughts I had after seeing it.
Obviously, lots of spoilers, and a reminder that the show could be very different once it opens. My intent in writing about it now is not to offer some kind of final judgment, but to chew on what the show is up to. Even things that don’t seem to be working often teach a lot about a show.
IT GOES SO FAST
In perhaps the most famous moment in Our Town, Emily, who has just died in childbirth, chooses to relive her 12th birthday, and finds it a nightmare. “It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another,” she says.
Right now, the play as a whole seems to move very fast. Though it was written by Thorton Wilder as a three act play, Leon’s production has cut it down to one very long act. The run time right now is 1 hour, 50 minutes.
Post-Covid Broadway has been obsessed with doing plays without an intermission. It probably made some sense for health reasons post-shutdown and seems to have stuck around as a marketing strategy. But in the case of Our Town, that choice seems right now in conflict with the material. The play is intended as a meditation on life—although we don’t know it at the beginning, we spend the play basically in the position of the dead, allowed to see and savor the poignant beauty of ordinary life. Emily’s experience in Act Three resonates so deeply with us precisely because we have spent so much time already with her and everyone else.
But at yesterday’s performance, instead of an invitation to contemplation I felt a quiet but constant sense of hurry. Every moment felt like it stood less on its own than it was in service to some bigger, unstated purpose that the Stage Manager has. But as a result when you get to the ending and Emily’s big, emotional monologue about appreciating life, it didn’t really land, because I never really feel like I got enough chance to know Emily or her family. It was still touching, but in the way that it would have been if an actor stepped on stage and just delivered that monologue.
THE REDMAYNING OF BROADWAY NARRATORS
While Jim Parsons’ current take on the Stage Manager is definitely not the Alien-in-Skin-Suit that Eddie Redmayne just unleashed on the world as Cabaret’s M.C., his performance right now does share with Redmayne a sort of distance from the proceedings. Does he care about any of the people of Grovers’ Corners? I can’t quite tell. He seems amused by them at times, but he’s not emotionally invested.
His costume unexpectedly adds to the problem. While everyone else dresses in early 20th century fare, Parsons looks like he’s just stepped out of the 1980s, in a blue suit with a white shirt underneath. And the shirt underneath, which actually looks to be a sweater kept running up throughout the performance. Near the end he was actually upstaged by the distraction of its wrinkles.
It’s definitely an interesting choice to imagine the Stage Manager as not quite of the world that he’s sharing with the people. But I think to some extent it undermines our affection and identification with all of them. And it calls attention to the Stage Manager as a character in a way that seems to upend the balance of things. It almost seems to become his story rather than theirs, to the point that I found myself wondering, Who is this guy and why is he giving us this report about this town?
If Parsons’ instincts are to step away from the people of Grovers’ Corners rather than towards them, perhaps he has to take that instinct farther, be the one who invites us to laugh with him at these strange and silly people. Maybe that would set us up for a greater sense of loss when we discover that Emily has died. But even then, I wonder if he’s not going to need a bit more humanity and warmth to bring the audience along.
AN OPENING EXPERIMENT
The play opens with the town organist coming on stage and starting to play piano. Then a recorded voice starts to sing in Hebrew. Two others join in singing something that has the feeling of a prayer. Meanwhile members of the cast walk down the aisles to the stage holding lanterns, each of them speaking what seem to be prayers to God. Their voices so overlap you can’t understand the specifics of what any of them are saying. And as the song—”Braided Prayer,” performed by Abraham Jam—ends, so do their prayers. The Stage Manager comes on and begins talking.
I can’t say I totally understand why Leon begins the show in this way. But I found it very moving. I think that it gives us a window into a truth shared by these characters and us, namely that we are all people who yearn and struggle, who seek meaning and connection. It makes you ready and open to receive them and their stories.
While for me the show didn’t quite pay off the promise of that opening, in some ways I don’t care. When I go to the theater I want to have an experience that I can’t have anywhere else. I want to be in the hands of a director, creative team and cast that try to explore in some way the unique medium that is theater.
I don’t necessarily need it to work, or work fully. I think at this point Leon could learn a lot from his opening—it’s the one moment in the show when the cast gets to really take their time, and it’s so effective. I’d love to see him spend the rest of previews testing out other moments where he could similarly allow his cast to explore.
But I also walked away pleased just to have experienced that opening moment, and to see the kinds of possibilities it opened up. Without me knowing a single thing about any of the characters yet, in that scene Leon gave me a way to care about them deeply.