So, I just saw the off-Broadway production of “Our Town” and am completely blown away. The thing is, I’m a horrible, horrible theater person, because I had never read, nor had I seen, this play before. So this was my first time— and what luck I have that I got to see this production with fresh eyes.
The director’s vision was so clear— and it only became clear in the third act, and even then it was toward the end. But the vision— the mission statement of the director’s play, really, and something that is said in the play— that the living don’t take time to look, and that the dead see everything more richly and clearly, was illustrated so eloquently and beautifully.
And, of course, I cried. Because it’s “Our Town” and people who don’t cry at it are sort of heartless.
Go see it— it’s at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York. It’s at the half price booth and on TDF all the time. Just go. See why, when a director has a clear vision of what they want to say, and are eloquent and talented and enough of a visionary to figure out just how to convey the message, theater can touch everyone. Can be relevent to anyone, anytime. “Our Town” was written in 1938, about people growing up in the years 1901, 1904, and 1913… and yet, with the vision firmly in place, and the actors, lighting, and set as capable vessels for the message, this play became not only relevent, but necessary to every single audience member.
I won’t tell you what the director did exactly, what the crowning moment was where the vision was fully acheived— if you’ve read this far, you may as well go see the play anyway. And, if you didn’t read this far then you don’t care enough to ask, now do you?
