Our Town

I've seen 'Our Town' on stage several times, dating back 50-some years to my small high school. I've seen it once on the small screen with Hal Holbrook, and including (I believe) John Houseman. But this is the best I have seen, and Paul Newman deserves a majority of the credit for this. He's about my age and I have watched him turn from the handsome, virile, often rebellious leading man to an old character actor. But this time he owns the stage. In live stage, I have never seen facial expression used really effectively: I've always been too far away from the actors. I don't recall Holbrook doing much in this area: I recall a rather straight narrative style that time. Newman is extraordinary. The expressions and the timing added a quality I don't ever recall seeing. The camera closed in appropriately and effectively. And for the first time I saw the Stage Manager turn from the simple travelogue narrator he appears at the opening to an identity at the closing moments I had never recognized before.

(I'm trying to be cautious and not spoil the end. Is it possible to spoil it? Hasn't everyone who enjoys American stage already seen 'Our Town', like me, enough times they can almost speak the dialogue of that final scene along with the characters?)

The play is so familiar that the sparse set comes naturally. This production actually used an item or two that I don't recall from earlier ones, but it still seems right. I was much impressed by the lighting, pulling the action up out of the overall darkness. Some things worked less well, I thought. George and Emily aged, and this was harder to do when the camera could zoom in and show their faces. With no makeup changes, they were left with dialogue and voice to convince the viewer, as I didn't feel movements showed the aging effectively. The same applied to the two sets of parents. Nonetheless, when Emily held the stage in the last scene, she still made it one of the most moving moments in theater.

I am intrigued by the critical response to 'Our Town'. Early reviews seem to be enthusiastic, but some critics since seem to consider it too light, too trivial, to be listed among the great ones like Williams's and Miller's works. But aren't we talking here about the universal themes of life? Isn't that serious enough?

Find a copy of it if you can. It's one of Paul Newman's great moments.

I've seen "Our Town" countless times with many excellent actors filling the role of stage manager/narrator. Paul Newman's performance easily tops them all. Although the TV version of Thornton Wilder's famous play lacks the spatial dimensions that are afforded by a stage, the story here is told in segments that are easily accommodated on a TV screen. This is Newman's "Our Town" to a degree that exceeds every other performance of the play that I've ever seen. And, since this is among the best acting jobs that Newman has ever done in his long career, that's just fine. I saw it with my wife and adult daughter (who also loved it) and commented that Newman is still a "mighty good-looking" guy.

mar this adaptation of the great Thornton Wilder play about mutability and one man (town's) place in the universe. Paul Newman, Jane Curtin, and Jayne Atkinson fare best. Jeffrey DeMunn is a little too "actorish," and the young leads lack spark and pale when compared to the luminous performance of William Holden and Martha Scott in the 1940 film. Not bad, but not great either. No two accents are alike (considering this is a turn-of-the-century New England town)---even among families. If you can't do accents, why bother?

I first read "Our Town" in tenth grade. I knew there was something amazing about it, but I couldn't understand, see, or find it. I made it my mission to find out.

Over the years, I have seen literally hundreds of productions of "Our Town," always in hopes of discovering the beauty that it possesses...somewhere.

And here it is. Finally.

This very contemporary, very recent production of "Our Town" is a stunning revisualization of this, Thornton Wilder's greatest work.

The thematic material of "Our Town" is often misunderstood as a look at the ordinariness of daily life and how tedious the mundane is, but this is a short-sighted claim to Wilder's writing, as he provides much more depth and texture than that.

It is biting yet sweet. It is sarcastic yet humbly honest. It is contemporary yet nostalgiac. In "Our Town," life is beautifully tragic, woefully joyous, and endearingly boring.

The acting here is top-notch, as the starring roles are filled by such seasoned veterans as Paul Newman, Jayne Atkinson, and more. Newman especially shines as one who is amused, terrified, and bored with this small provincial place over which he seems to be a kind of non-active deity. Emily's final farewell to Grover's Corners is especially beautiful.

The real wonder of this production is that it is apparent that the production team pulled together to create a solid, collaberative, cohesive piece of theatre that would reach people of all ages, colors, and creeds. All aspects of the production have come together beautifully to create this amazingly convincing work of theatre.

Furthermore, this televised version is a wonderfully rendering of the original stage production. The camera never feels obtrusive, it never feels out of place or foreign. We feel like the audience, not like the camera. We are being led on a tour.

Perhaps it is Thornton's (and the Stage Manager's) brilliant tour-guide-like presentation that makes this work so superbly on camera as well as stage.

All in all, this mounting of "Our Town" surely does Thornton Wilder justice, as it brilliantly achieves what all great theatre should aspire to do: it emotes; it teaches; it explains; it examines; and it humanizes. Do not miss this for anything.

I don't think I've ever seen a production of this play that did not bring tears to my eyes in the last act. It is simply a powerful work and hard even for amateur players to fail in. This production follows true to form. Paul Newman is wonderful as the Stage Manager. He plays the part with such ease and conviction that one forgets all about the blue-eyed heartthrob he once was and concentrates solely on an actor at the top of his form.

I also think Maggie Lacey is very fine as Emily. She plays the young woman as breathless, open-eyed, innocent, and just darn good. That is the way Emily is supposed to be played, of course, but Ms. Lacey does it exceptionally well. (How stupid it is to think that goodness is dull!) The actor who plays George (Ben Fox, I believe) is less appealing, and comes across at times as a near-hayseed. Fox is successful at playing George's self-doubts, but not his strength.

I have stayed away from the Hollywood version of the play, the one starring William Holden, because I have heard that the ending in the graveyard is changed, that it is treated as a dream. It's hard to believe that anyone would touch the text of Thornton Wilder's play, but a change of that magnitude would certainly take away much of the play's power.

All in all, this is a likable production.