| Our Town | |
| Posted by: aleck 02:08 pm EST 11/08/24 | |
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| I've been out of the country for a couple of months. (I was in Japan because I wanted to be in a country where I could not read or understand the language during those terrible election months. I just didn't want to hear about it every five minutes. It worked. Kind of.) But in my absence, I read the rave Times review of Our Town and couldn't wait to put in on my first must-see upon return list. I saw it last night. Huh? Where did that review come from? Was he reviewing some other production or a memory of some other production -- like the Paul Newman production or moreso the Spalding Grey production. Were all the reviews this laudatory? This new production, which I am putting on the all-time atrocity list along with the Hugh Jackman Music Man -- got the full Kenny Leon treatment. Namely, fast and loud. And who allowed all those cuts in the script? If you were not familiar with the play, some of the sections wouldn't make sense. And they certainly clipped off any sense of rich characterization that ended up making the character relationships difficult to determine. Was this allowed by the Wilder estate as a way of extending the copyright -- like that other atrocity, the "Gershwins Porgy and Bess" of a few years ago. Is this new Our Town now the official version? If you had never seen the FULL play done properly, one would be puzzled to figure out why it is such a classic. With this fast and loud approach, many of the poor actors came across worse than a high school performer, except in the case when all that was needed was a caricature, like with Julie Halston, giving a great Julie Halston impersonation. And Jim Parsons? Who ever heard of a dismissive and mean Stage Manager. When he told scene participants to end their scenes, it wasn't with a gentle voice but rather with a meant-spirited demand. Why? What does that give us? What does it say about "our time?" On the other hand, considering the outcome of the election the other day, maybe it does indeed reflect "our time." Fast, loud, and mean. |
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