BWW REVIEW: AN 'OUR TOWN' FOR OUR TIME

Written by Thornton Wilder; directed by David Cromer; scenic design, Stephen Dobay; costume design, Alison Siple; lighting design, Heather Gilbert; original music and music direction, Jonathan Mastro

Cast in order of appearance:

Stage Manager, David Cromer (through December 30), Joel Colodner (starting December 31); Mrs. Gibbs, Melinda Lopez; Mrs. Webb, Stacy Fisher; Dr. Gibbs, Craig Mathers; Joe Crowell, Jr., Jay Ben Markson; Howie Newsome, Alex Pollock; George Gibbs, Derrick Trumbly; Rebecca Gibbs, Emily Skeggs; Emily Webb, Therese Plaehn; Wally Webb, Eliott Purcell; Professor Willard, Richard Arum; Mr. Webb, Christopher Tarjan; Simon Stimson, Nael Nacer; Mrs. Soames, Marianna Bassham; Constable Warren, Paul D. Farwell; Si Crowell, Ryan Wenke; Joe Stoddard, Dale Place; Sam Craig, Nicholas Carter; Irma, Kathryn Lynch; Farmer McCarty, Douglas Griffin; Citizens: Suzanne Bixby, James Bocock, Anne Colpitts, Kevin Fennessy, Michael Henry James Knowlton, Jeff Marcus, Ellen Peterson, Bill Salem, Ann Marie Shea, Sophie Sinclair, Ralph Stokes and Lynn Wilcott

Performances and Tickets:

Now through January 26 (extended by popular demand), Roberts Studio Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, Mass.; tickets start at $25 and are available online at www.huntingtontheatre.org or by calling the Box Office at 617-266-0800.

On the evening of Thursday, December 13, I attended the Huntington Theatre Company's production of Our Town, the acclaimed David Cromer revival of this quintessentially American play about neighbors in a quintessentially small New England town. Within less than 24 hours, incomprehensible tragedy struck in a similarly close-knit but very real New England community called Newtown, and suddenly the play's poignant and powerful message became even more striking: cherish our loved ones and embrace the beauty of each day, for we never know which moment will be our last.

In Our Town, which won a Pulitzer Prize for playwright Thornton Wilder when it premiered on Broadway in 1938, the residents of fictional Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, circa the early 1900s, go about their day-to-day lives in pragmatic fashion - delivering the morning newspaper and bottles of milk, cooking breakfast and getting the kids off to school, snapping green beans while sharing gossip, and doing homework by moonlight as the voices from the church choir waft across the valley and through the Open Windows of the bedrooms on the second floor. In the flurry of maintaining a household, earning a living, raising children, and, in the case of young Emily Webb and George Gibbs, falling in love and getting married, townsfolk overlook the simple joys of watching a sunrise or really hearing a train whistle as it sings in the distance. One's deepest thoughts and feelings are rarely shared. Instead, people talk of the weather and awkwardly dance around their real concerns.