OUR TOWN 2024 Broadway Reviews

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 1:28pm

Starring four-time Emmy Award® winner Jim Parsons, OUR TOWN returns to Broadway for the first time in over 20 years. Hailed by Edward Albee as “the greatest American play ever written,” Thornton Wilder‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning classic will shine in a momentous new production. Directed by Tony Award® winner Kenny Leon (Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch, Topdog/Underdog, A Raisin in the Sun), this is an OUR TOWN for our time.

In Wilder’s timeless tale of a small town, a stage manager narrates the daily lives of its locals, depicts a childhood friendship turn into marriage, and sets the stage for magnificent truths of what it means to be alive. Don’t miss this strictly limited engagement of an essential American classic. Now in performances at the Barrymore Theatre.

OUR TOWN features a cast of 28 actors, including Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory, The Boys In The Band), Katie Holmes (All My Sons, Batman Begins), Zoey Deutch (Netflix’s Set It Up), Ephraim Sykes (Ain’t Too Proud), Billy Eugene Jones (Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch, Fat Ham), Richard Thomas (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Waltons), Michelle Wilson (Sweat), Julie Halston (Tootsie), and Donald Webber, Jr. (Hamilton).

At the Barrymore Theatre. Opening Night October 10. 

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 7:36pm

11 PM embargo lift.

[RUkiddingme]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 9:59pm

as if anyone in Grover's Corner stays open till 11!

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 10:03pm

NY Daily News/Chicago Tribune

BROADWAY REVIEW: Revival of Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town’ is moving, emotionally stirring production

https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/10/10/broadway-review-revival-of-thornton-wilders-our-town-is-moving-emotionally-stirring-production/

"One of Leon’s distinctive gifts is his ability to take a canonical American play and make it feel like it was written about all Americans of all races instead of just a small town full of white people in New Hampshire, as actually was the case in 1938. That is the biggest achievement of this revival and said achievement is a very big deal, even though this production does not plumb the existential depths, nor the anguish and grief often felt by the human heart, to the extent of David Cromer’s famous 2008 Chicago and Off-Broadway revival that cut through any and all sentimentality with a ruthless pair of shearing scissors.

Cromer’s probing production (an unforgettable masterwork, to my mind) shocked you into an awareness you were doing everything wrong; Leon’s new Broadway take is far gentler, more understanding of human frailty and the need for comforting rituals, more focused on creating a Grover’s Corners that could be the intersection of anywhere in America."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:00pm

NY Stage Review

OUR TOWN: THORNTON WILDER’S CLASSIC IN FUNCTIONAL (BUT LESS THAN GRIPPING) REVIVAL

By Steven Suskin

★★★☆☆ Jim Parsons, Richard Thomas, Zoey Deutch and more in director Kenny Leon’s new production

https://nystagereview.com/2024/10/10/our-town-thornton-wilders-classic-in-functional-but-less-than-gripping-revival/

 

OUR TOWN: KENNY LEON SMARTLY REPOPULATES THORNTON WILDER FOR 2024

By David Finkle

★★★★☆ Parsons, Thomas, Holmes, Jones, Wilson, Deutch, Sykes head stand-out 28-member cast

https://nystagereview.com/2024/10/10/our-town-kenny-leon-smartly-repopulates-thornton-wilder-for-2024/

[KevinKlawitter]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:00pm

4/5 from Adam Feldman of TimeOut

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:02pm

TimeOut - 4 stars

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/our-town-broadway-review-thornton-wilder-jim-parsons

" Tears were streaming down my face for much of the last half hour of this revival; perhaps you will feel the same way. But while we in the audience might weep, Wilder's view, though always sympathetic, stays clear and dry. He has a eye on the eternal."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:03pm

NYT - Critic's Pick from Green

Review: An ‘Our Town’ for All of Us, Starring Jim Parsons

The Thornton Wilder classic returns to Broadway, still brutal and avant-garde after 86 years.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/10/theater/our-town-review-jim-parsons.html

"And though some of the effectiveness of the revival is clearly the result of Kenny Leon’s swift and unsentimental direction, and of a fine cast led by the mercilessly acute Jim Parsons as the Stage Manager, we must begin with wonder and admiration for the play itself. In its portrait of “the life of a village against the life of the stars,” as Wilder described it, the monumental is always expressed in the miniature, and the miniature is always crushed by the monument."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:04pm

B from Entertainment Weekly.

Our Town review: Jim Parsons guides us through the magical simplicity of Thorton Wilder's timeless classic

https://ew.com/our-town-review-jim-parsons-broadway-8726106

"It's Parsons who is our constant, yet his performance is the most difficult to parse: his Stage Manager strikes the Wilder balance of dry yet sincere, but feels rather distanced. He leaves us wanting in some moments — for comfort, sentimentality, or perhaps just clarity — but when the time comes for his critical third act monologue, he has just the right words, just the right tone. "

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:05pm

Variety:

‘Our Town’ Review: Jim Parsons and Katie Holmes Charm in Reimagining of the Broadway Classic

https://variety.com/2024/legit/reviews/our-town-review-broadway-1236171471/

"there is also something to be said about inclusive casting. Adding more depth to a narrative originally written for white, able-bodied actors, Leon’s choice to cast deaf actor John McGinty as milkman Howie Newsome and Black actors in the production further showcase how timeless and universal Wilder’s words are. Despite our differences and the things that divide us, being alive is about the little things: coffee in the morning, a warm place to lay our heads or even hopes of the future. "

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:06pm

WSJ

‘Our Town’ Review: Thornton Wilder, Back on Broadway

The new production of the canonical American play, directed by Kenny Leon, sees the classic through through a contemporary lens.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/our-town-review-thornton-wilder-back-on-broadway-23333989?st=Fu7Uck&mod=googlenewsfeed

"Without notably modifying the text, the director, Kenny Leon, nevertheless presents it through a contemporary lens. Dr. Gibbs and his wife and children are played by black actors, while their neighbors the Webbs are white, and the milkman Howie is played by a hearing-impaired actor. This kind of casting has become common—largely to the good—but it does pose unique problems for Wilder’s play, at least for this viewer."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:07pm

Deadline is mixed-to-positive

‘Our Town’ Broadway Review: Jim Parsons Leads A Thornton Wilder Classic Unstuck In Time

https://deadline.com/2024/10/our-town-broadway-review-1236109200/

"Leon, a top-notch director who has done recent work that is both more exhilarating (Purlie Victorious) and more revelatory (Home), here makes a few attempts at diversifying and era-defying Wilder’s classic without offering a complete re-think that might have brought fresher life to the theatrical chestnut."

"few of the cast members are on stage long enough to make overlarge impressions, and those that are – with the exception of Parsons – don’t always make the most of the opportunity. Holmes and Thomas are gentle presences but little more, Sykes and Deutch, as the childhood sweethearts who marry and, in the play’s heart-tugging final segment, face life’s final act, are better individually than together. (Deutch does fine, though, in her big scene at the end when, allowed a brief return to the earthly realm, her Emily learns the painful lessons of life’s fragility and swiftness.)"

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:10pm

Daily Beast

Broadway Review: ‘Our Town’ Gets Lost Reaching for the Stars

FUTURE SHOCK

Thornton Wilder’s parable of small town America gets a starry but unfocused Broadway revival, featuring Jim Parsons, Katie Holmes, Billy Eugene Jones, and Richard Thomas.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/broadway-review-our-town-gets-lost-reaching-for-the-stars

"In a director’s note, Leon says the play, as well as being about time, is—in a play mainly devoid of props—about “love, daily life, family pain, joy, marriage.” The play reminds us of the good in us, writes Leon, and the community is “inclusive and embracing of the differences among us.” That is an admirably ambitious brace of themes, if not what the play itself seems to propose."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:11pm

1 1/2 stars from NYP:

‘Our Town’ review: Bland Broadway revival starring Jim Parsons and Katie Holmes doesn’t hit home

https://nypost.com/2024/10/10/entertainment/our-town-review-revival-starring-jim-parsons-and-katie-holmes-doesnt-hit-home/

"Despite the random contemporary touches, the actors get so mired in “gee willikers!” nostalgia and drippy sentimentality Wilder’s script does not call for that playgoers cease to connect to anybody.

Scenes are, at once, overacted — like an olde tyme park — and underacted, with nary a believable or grounded moment to speak of.

The ensemble, including Katie Holmes as Mrs. Webb, Richard Thomas as Mr. Webb and Michelle Wilson as Mrs. Gibbs, all operate on different, conflicting levels of style and energy. Individually, nobody is bad, but collectively, they never cohere. This is less a town than a group of shut-in neighbors who’ve never met."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:12pm

Washington Post:

Katie Holmes and Jim Parsons lead an ‘Our Town’ aimed at swing states

The Broadway revival presents an inclusive vision of who’s considered ordinary in America.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater/2024/10/10/our-town-broadway-katie-holmes-jim-parsons/

"Leon’s staging is lovely, but I found myself craving a daring challenge to the idea of convention rather than simply an inclusive version of it. Why should the picture of a “typical American life” remain so narrow? Why stuff it with more types of people rather than pull it apart? That’s a job for other storytellers — whose repudiation of norms will hopefully become the new one."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:12pm

Theatrely

A Haunting Jim Parsons Leads OUR TOWN — Review

https://www.theatrely.com/post/a-haunting-jim-parsons-leads-our-town-review

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:15pm

The Wrap

‘Our Town’ Broadway Review: Jim Parsons and Katie Holmes Walk Different Paths

Kenny Leon’s production adds a lot of diversity to Thornton Wilder’s classic

https://www.thewrap.com/our-town-broadway-review-jim-parsons-katie-holmes/

Hofler mostly hates the play but has some nice things to say about the cast

"In addition to Parsons’ pitch-perfect Stage Manager, Billy Eugene Jones and Richard Thomas bring real authenticity to the play’s two fathers, as does Ephraim Sykes in the role of the groom-widower George Gibbs. An extreme condescension, however, enters into the picture with several of the female actors’ performances thanks to the costumes, by Dede Ayite, which are dreadful. Katie Holmes’ mother wears earrings that are diamond studs. Michelle Wilson’s mother wears gold drop earrings. Zoey Deutch’s daughter wears a lace miniskirt. And Julie Halston’s town gossip hasn’t changed her coif or clothes since she last played Bitsy von Muffling in “And Just Like That.” If there’s a dramatic logic to these displays of money, it escapes me. Halston somehow manages to escape the burden of her appearance to deliver a credible performance."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:16pm

Holdren in Vulture:

Stage, Managed: A TV-Star-Driven Our Town

https://www.vulture.com/article/theater-review-jim-parsons-kenny-leon-our-town.html

"That fundamental drive — that feeling of questing clarity, of the necessity of returning to an old play to excavate its glowing, undiminished heart — is what Kenny Leon’s new Broadway production lacks. It’s not painful, but it’s far from revelatory. In certain ways it treads safely down the middle of the road — gets in, gets on with it, gets it over with, and gets out. But Leon (like many post-Cromer directors of the play) also seems to be reaching for gestures to make this visit to Grover’s Corners new and different, and the flourishes wind up feeling tentative or hodgepodge-y, never coalescing. At the end of the show, he goes so far as to pipe the smell of bacon into the auditorium — the Cinnabon version of Cromer’s innovation. Wilder was adamant that his play needed “only five square feet of boarding and the passion to know what life means to us.” The man knew what he was about. Start adding icing and you’d better know, too."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:19pm

NY Sun

Under the Direction of Kenny Leon, Broadway Revival of ‘Our Town’ Is a Plea for Harmony in Our Time

Leon’s aim, clearly, is to make us wish for a better world, and as it’s relayed here, that goal doesn’t seem at all incongruous with Thornton Wilder’s vision.

https://www.nysun.com/article/under-the-direction-of-kenny-leon-broadway-revival-of-our-town-is-a-plea-for-harmony-in-our-time

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:20pm

Theatermania

Review: Our Town Returns to Broadway With Jim Parsons, a Diverse Cast, and Onstage Seating

Kenny Leon invigorates Thornton Wilder’s classic at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-our-town-returns-to-broadway-with-jim-parsons-a-diverse-cast-and-onstage-seating_1752331/

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:21pm

Slant

https://www.slantmagazine.com/theater/the-hills-of-california-our-town-review/

"Leon has admirably made Grover’s Corners into an inclusive utopia beyond the monochromatic Vermont idylls that Wilder would have imagined 85 years ago. But in doing so, he also seems to have smoothed out not only the conflict that would prevent a diverse town from thriving in 1938 but also eliminated too much of the drama that ripples throughout any community. Until death strikes, late in the play, few scenes feel loaded with enough specificity in characterization to generate much tension at all, making for a placid but not very gripping first half."

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 11:25pm

Say hello to Tony nomination #2, Jim Parsons.

Also, he looks fiiiiiine with facial hair. :)

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 10/11/24 at 10:04am

DTLI Consensus: Everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal — like the lasting emotional impact of this here-and-now revival of Wilder’s classic.

7 positive (including the NYT), 4 mixed, 1 negative.

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/our-town-2/

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 10/11/24 at 10:40am

EDSOSLO858 said: "Say hello to Tony nomination #2, Jim Parsons."

Eh...it's early in the season and this closes in January. Sometimes even acclaimed performances are forgotten by Tony time, and these aren't LOJ-in-Purlie level reviews.

[MayAudraBlessYou2]

Posted: 10/11/24 at 11:06am

At least at this point, the Lead Actor in a Play field feels a bit less competitive than in most years. So Parsons actually does look good for a Tony nomination. 

Cole Escola and Denzel Washington will probably join him. Other eligible folks are Kit Conner, George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr, Peter Friedman, Peter Gallagher, Daniel Dae Kim, maybe someone from Stranger Things or Purpose (don't really know the structure of those plays), and maybe John Mulaney (unclear if he is lead, or the whole cast goes featured). The characters from Glengarry have historically all gone featured I believe. Out of this field, I think Parsons gets in fairly easily.

I expected this show to get mostly B or C grades, so the Times Critics pick is surprising and lucky for them. Hopefully they can use that to overshadow the negative and middling reviews elsewhere. Anecdotally, plenty of industry folks have walked out feeling rather "meh" about this production.