Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning OUR TOWN made its debut in 1938, and went on to become one of the greatest American plays of all time, being performed at least once every night somewhere in the United States and throughout the world. Director Kenny Leon now brings rediscovery to this beautiful revival that opened on Broadway October 10, 2024, for a limited run through January 19, 2025, at the exquisite Barrymore Theater (243 West 47th Street) with a diverse cast that adds layers to the communications of relationships in the ageless and beloved American town of Grover’s Corners that are able to be explored because of the differences.
As described in the Program Note, Director Leon aims to reflect both Wilder’s original setting and contemporary America. Costumes and acting styles use a mix of period and modern. The diverse cast includes an interracial relationship between George Gibbs (Ephraim Sykes) and Emily Webb (Zoey Deutch), and the Milkman, Howie Newsome (John McGinty), is played by a deaf actor who signs with the actors in his scenes. Thirty audience members are seated in pews on either side of the bare stage, witnessing the play as the town’s friends and neighbors. The immersive experience is heightened under floating lanterns that extend from the stage out into the house, like a glittering constellation in the night sky. It is in this tableau that Simon Stimson (Donald Webber Jr.), the local (alcoholic) Choirmaster, staggers across the bare stage to pluck out a note on piano and lead the chorus in a musical prelude of Jewish, Muslim and Christian prayer – before the Stage Manager (Jim Parsons) enters and begins the play.
As he introduces us to the small American town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire the Stage Manager prepares us: “So – people a thousand years from now – this is the way we were in the provinces north of New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying.” The three acts, Daily Life, Love and Marriage, and Death and Eternity, are played sequentially, without an intermission. The cumulative pacing helps to illustrate, in a sensory way, how life speeds up over time. The production, on Beowulf Boritt’s perfect set of wooden planks that soar up to the sky, demands that you call upon your senses to feel its full impact. Props are mimed, so you see what you imagine. Language is direct and unadorned, with New England colloquialisms that propel you into the action. And Leon has employed a ‘smell-design’ and the use of scent. Yes, one scent per act fills the theater, so as Mrs. Gibbs tends to her garden you can smell her heliotropes. As your heart fills when Emily and George fall in love over vanilla ice cream, the defining smell fills the theater until you can almost taste it. And as your heart breaks when Emily returns from the dead to witness her 12th birthday in her family kitchen, you can literally smell the bacon.
The stellar 28 member integrated cast creates a fine ensemble under the innovative hand of Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon, and is led by Emmy, Golden Globe & Screen Actors Guild Award-winner Jim Parsons as “Stage Manager”, Zoey Deutch as “Emily Webb”, Katie Holmes as “Mrs. Webb”, Obie & Audelco Award-winner and Drama Desk-nominee Billy Eugene Jones as “Dr. Gibbs”, Tony & Grammy Award-nominee Ephraim Sykes as “George Gibbs”, Tony & Drama Desk Award-nominee and Emmy-Award-winner Richard Thomas as “Mr. Webb”, Tony & Drama Desk-nominee Michelle Wilson as “Mrs. Gibbs”, 2021 Special Tony Award-winner and Drama Desk-nominee Julie Halston as “Mrs. Soames”, Donald Webber, Jr. as “Simon Stimson”, as well as 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.
When Wilder wrote OUR TOWN in 1938, he wanted it performed without sentimentality. Jim Parsons‘s natural warmth, and unassuming intimacy draws us right in. Zoey Deutch‘s girlhood innocence is contagious, and taken from her way too young. Richard Thomas is a complete, feel-good presence. Billy Eugene Jones and Michelle Wilson are a compassionate pair, and Julie Halston gets every laugh in a small and memorable featured role. While OUR TOWN may focus on the residents of the small New England town at the turn of the century, what has made it a timeless classic is the universal theme of the transience of life. The script is ostensibly fool-proof with its quiet exploration of the human experience and mortality.
It has been 86 years since Wilder’s play debuted, but despite all the changes in American life his expressed concern has not. He felt that people are so caught up in the stresses and self-centeredness of their daily lives they fail to appreciate the simple beauty and significance of everyday existence, often taking life’s ordinary moments for granted. This production of OUR TOWN will play it’s final performance on January 19, 2025. Your moment is now. Heed the playwright’s advice and take yourself to the theater.
ABOUT THE DESIGN TEAM:
The imaginative design team for OUR TOWN includes scenic design by Tony Award-winner Beowulf Boritt (New York, New York; Act One), costume design by Tony Award-winner and Drama Desk Award-winner Dede Ayite (Jaja’s African Hair Braiding; Suzan Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog), lighting design by Tony Award-nominee Allen Lee Hughes (Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog; A Soldier’s Play), sound design by Tony Award-nominee Justin Ellington (Ohio State Murders; for colored girls…), hair, wig & makeup design by J. Jared Janas (Mary Jane, Prayer for the French Republic), casting by Jim Carnahan, with Kate Wilson (The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window) as the dialect coach.
Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th St., ourtownbroadway.com. Through Jan. 19, 2025. Running Time: 1 hour 45 minutes.
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