David Cromer's OUR TOWN Surprise?

[Tom Wingfield]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 2:16am

Hi everyone,

I recently read (after so many years of ignorance) OUR TOWN by Thornton Wilder. The third act was so shocking and simple and brilliant. I've been super-interested in the play ever since and have been researching notable productions of it, just to learn more about the play's history.

In doing so, I came across reviews of David Cromer's off-Broadway production at the Barrow Street Theater. Almost every single review mentions some crazy-brilliant, jaw-dropping innovation in the third act, but it seems they were sworn to secrecy by the producers and won't tell us what it is.

Now that the production has closed, there's really no harm in saying what it is, right? I'm dying (no pun intended) to find out. If you saw this production, would you please enlighten me?

[dramamama611]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 7:48am

I thought it was BRILLIANT. I had only ever had a mild appreciation of this play. I can't even tell you why I chose to see this show. Maybe I was looking for the reason I didn't love it as everyone else seemed to. I found it.

Through Acts I and II, the characters are dressed in plain, ordinary and relatively contemporary clothes. What little furniture was used is also basic and contemporary. Of course, the props are mimed (as written). When Emily re-visits her "day", not only is everyone in period costumes and using full props (ie. SEE what we missed, see all the things we didn't notice and took for granted?) but as b'fast is being prepared, it is ACTUALLY cooking on the stove. The sound is alive. The smell of bacon cooking suddenly fills another of your senses.

It floods your senses and creates such an amazing emotional reaction. I was sobbing.

I plan on stealing it. BIG TIME.

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 8:10am

I thought it was trite and corny as hell (the whole production was), but what do I know?

[Katurian2]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 9:10am

dramamama described it perfectly- I thought the production was incredible, and more more than just the legendary 'surprise' alone. But still, the smell of cooking bacon will now forever be irrevocably connected to that moment. It was incredibly powerful. There were a few other neat innovations in that production too, such as placing the graveyard 'tombs' with the actors in the chairs among the audience sitting onstage also in the same chairs. There was a neat representation of the stars in the covering and uncovering of the windows (I think) creating little patches that shone through.

I saw it twice, once with Cromer as the stage manager and once with Michael Shannon, and while both were just phenomenal, Michael Shannon brought this intimidating and unexpected presence that was quite unique to the role.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 9:37am

The moment when the black curtain - that you'd assumed for 2.5 hours to be nothing more than a black curtain - opened and revealed a kitchen ripped from Grover's Corners, and mother in her beautiful dress, and that bacon sizzling, popping, smelling up the room... Just stunning.

I'd luckily not had it spoiled and the first time I saw it left me in a hot mess of tears. It was truly the most transformative thing I have ever seen done on a stage.

Prior to that, our only knowledge had been a sort of "rehearsal room". Rehearsal skirts, scenery, etc. And no props. But this... THIS changed the game.

An amazing production that I was blessed to catch three times: Michael Shannon, David Cromer and (my favorite in the role) Helen Hunt. Each time, I was moved by the ending. How could you not be? It wasn't just there, but it smelled. It gnawed at your senses like memories sometime do.

[singtopher]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 9:42am

What was kind of funny for me is that I had never seen nor read the play before I saw this production so I had no idea that it was new take on it. It just seems so logical that I figured it was in the script.

[walkedthroughmany]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 9:44am

Best production I've ever seen. Of anything.

And I thought Michael McKean was the best Stage Manager.

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 9:44am

I wasn't moved because I found it to be manipulative. The bacon did the acting in that scene, not the performers. It's interesting to me too--especially in light of this whole Porgy and Bess brouhaha--that no one ever called out Cromer for "improving" upon Wilder's stated intentions in the text.

Like I said, I didn't like the production as a whole, but this scene especially rubbed me the wrong way. I saw Jason Butler Harner as the Stage Manager, who was excellent, but the rest of the cast featured some of the most divergent acting I've ever seen in an ensemble piece. The girl playing Emily seemed mentally challenged.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 9:54am

Hands down, Our Town is my favorite play. I'm sorry I didn't see the off-Broadway production last year. I tried whenever I was in the city, but it was always sold out.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 9:57am

But Cromer didnt CHANGE anything but the way to show us what we miss in our day to day lives. THAT is interpretation. He didn't change the intent, he didn't "fix" things. He found another way to put the audience in the moment.

As I mentioned, I'd always appreciated the show and "understood" the message. I always knew there was something that wasn't working for me. I'd seen many productions and was always left a bit cold. This changed that feeling. I saw, for the first time, the true beauty behind the message.

I rather liked the non-conventional characterizations. I liked it more than the kids being "all american". They were just living their lives.

Is the scene a bit manipulative? I think so, but it works within the entire production. Emily needs to be smacked with the difference in perceptions to understand and accept her death.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 10:01am

I have to admit, I'm of mixed feelings about this. It was a fascinating coup de theatre, but there was something in the way it was carried off that just felt, as noted, manipulative.

Not that all theatre isnt, to some degree, but to suddenly pull back the curtain and oh look!, after two acts of, well, nothing like it, felt too jarring. My friends and I were talking about it afterwards, and we all thought that what might have worked better would be to, yes, change the costumes, but let the *smell* permeate the theatre, so that it becomes more a part of the process of re-discovery. In other words, bring it all back in subtle layers, not some big sledgehammer moment.

But hey, what do I know, right?

[dramamama611]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 10:08am

(a quick thank you to all for discussing and not attacking!)

[Katurian2]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 10:10am

But I don't think that would have captured the impact of the moment. It's meant to be a brief, sudden and terrifyingly sad look back into ONE memory of Emily's entire life. If it feels just slightly different than Emily's death or is brought in slow or only a bit, that doesn't really hit what the moment is. The death would just feel a bit like the life, which is not the message at all.


ETA: Yes! This is a delightful thread to wake up to. And if this production were still running with rotating stage managers, I would still be visiting it again. It was just sensational.

Updated On: 8/11/11 at 10:10 AM

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 10:15am

My main concern with Cromer's vision was that he discarded Wilder's stated intentions--that the scene be played figuratively, with only bare scenery, etc. By doing that in the exact opposite away--aside from the bacon frying, you had the characters appearing in period dress, thus overemphasizing the separateness of this scene from the rest of the production--it felt like Cromer was being condescending to his audience. Wilder wanted the words, the emotions, to speak in this scene; Cromer felt that his audience wouldn't understand this without a literal representation, IMO. It was manipulative and rubbed me the wrong way, but enough people I know whose opinions I respect had the opposite reaction and thought it was the greatest thing ever. So what he was trying to do worked for most, it seems. Just not for me.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 10:31am

I saw a horrible production of this play in DC a few years ago where the final scene was played with Emily alone in the kitchen with the voices of her parents coming through the speakers. Needless to say, I was not very happy about what this particular director chose to do.

It sounds like I would have enjoyed the Cromer version a lot more than I did the Broadway revival which featured Paul Newman.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 10:39am

>> I saw a horrible production of this play in DC a few years ago where the final scene was played with Emily alone in the kitchen with the voices of her parents coming through the speakers.

In the right hands, that could be wonderfully creepy and hit a number of solid points about death and memory. Something tells me these werent those hands.

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 10:43am

The Paul Newman production was a museum piece. It was bloodless. I personally loved Greg Mosher's production, which I felt injected new life into the play while still respecting the text.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 10:50am

^I blame Greg Naughton's direction for that!

[dramamama611]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 10:50am

AC...I can see what you are getting at with your last post.

FOr me, I think the difference is: in any production I've seen the entire cast is always in period dress and the re-visit scene DIDN'T seem any different. I've only ever seen Emily's reaction know SHE got what was always overlooked in life, and being pretty whiney about expressing it. This time, I saw what she was missing entirely. It hit me so strongly, that I was sobbing, I felt bad for the actor in the graveyard that had to stare directly at me during that scene. I can only remember crying like that two other times at the theater:

1. The original production of Sunday in the Park when current George finds his purpose (a big thing in my life).

2. The end of Night Mother.

I've been moved by many things, but those three remain the most emotional.

[leefowler]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 10:52am

I just thought I'd weigh in that this was the best show I've ever seen in New York City, hands down.

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 10:52am

Drama, I respect your opinion completely and respectfully disagree. Again, it's nice to see civility at work in this thread.

Dottie, I blame the direction too--but it was James Naughton, not his son, Greg!

[mikem]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 10:56am

I thought the choice of bacon really was brilliant. Cooking bacon has a very distinctive smell, and the combination of hearing the frying and smelling the bacon is very specific about cooking bacon at home (rather than ordering it in a restaurant). I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom that brought up memories of my own childhood and going into the kitchen to see my mother cooking bacon on the stove.

And the whole idea of smell enhancing a theatrical production was so unexpected that it made the impact even greater.

Matthew Murray in his Talkin' Broadway review of the show says, "I counted three astonishing coups de théâtre in Act III alone." The bacon is obviously one of them, and I guess the reveal of the kitchen is another, but what do you think he's referring to as the third one?

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 10:58am

Probably the interspersing of the "dead" amongst the audience.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 11:14am

Thanks for the correction AC126748. I was typing without researching on IBDB. I hated that production because I felt James Naughton ruined it. I wasn't too keen on the actress playing Emily either, but I will say I enjoyed her on the PBS telecast though.

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/11/11 at 11:39am

The actress who played Emily in the Newman production was Maggie Lacey. I didn't like her either, but I felt that she was leagues better than Jennifer Grace in the Cromer production. Lacey was excellent in Horton Foote's DIVIDING THE ESTATE and various roles in THE ORPHANS' HOME CYCLE, and opposite Olympia Dukakis in THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE.

I agree that she--and the production in general--came off better on film.