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  • Grover’s Corners Gets SexyThe Appealing Dissonance of David Cromer’s Our Town
  • Tony Gunn (bio)

David cromer’s production of Our Town has been an astounding commercial hit, selling out in every city it plays. This contemporary reimagining of Thornton Wilder’s classic began in Chicago with The Hypocrites in 2008 before moving off Broadway to the Barrow Street Theatre, where it ran for over 600 performances. Since then, Cromer has been invited to stage the production at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica and at Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company. Designed for intimate spaces and played in a three-quarters round, Cromer’s production is able to adhere to Wilder’s famous stage directions, which call for very spare setting and props, while interpolating intriguing conceptual choices that dramatically shift the tenor of the show. Chris Jones, in his review of the original Hypocrites production, raved that Cromer “removes every last shred of sentimentality from the piece, replacing it with a blend of cynicism and simple human truth. But—and here’s the rub—he does so without removing the vitality and sincerity. Like many great revivals . . . it’s neither archly conceptual nor a subversion of a great American play, but an explication for the modern age.”1

This article explores the multiple threads that weave through this intriguing production. My observations and analysis are based on reviews of the various manifestations, and also from two performances I witnessed at the Huntington Theatre Company in January 2013.2 First, I consider a brief production history of Our Town and show how its reputation as a life-affirming portrait of American life and its usual tone of sentimental yearning for the past have formed over time and were not apparent at the show’s Broadway premiere. Second, I place Cromer’s production within this history, outlining what makes the show so distinctive. [End Page 110] Of Cromer’s conceptual choices, the most noteworthy is a reversal, what I refer to as the magic trick, which he introduces during the third act. Critics have described this choice as “jaw dropping,”3 “profound and stunning,”4 and “audacious and brilliant.”5 The simple but innovative directorial choice changes everything about the show for a few moments, bringing new life to the play’s emotionally rich ending. The magic trick along with Cromer’s other directional choices help rediscover the thematic possibilities found in Our Town and highlight aspects of the play that are often glossed over. As a result, the show experiences a renewal, ripe with rejuvenation that transcends traditional notions of nostalgia and restores relevancy and commercial viability to the well-known classic.

As Thornton Wilder wrote Our Town, he famously attempted to mirror the theatre as it was performed by the Greeks and by Shakespeare, letting the conventions of the stage carry the meanings of his play rather than resort to realism. Concerning the thematic importance, he states that the play “is not offered as a picture of life in a New Hampshire village; or as a speculation about the conditions of life after death. It is an attempt to find a value above all price for the smallest events in our daily life.”6 Brooks Atkinson, in a glowing review of the 1938 Broadway premiere, focuses on these same themes: “Day by day we are buoyed up by the normal bustle of our families, neighbors and friends. But the long point of view is a lonely one and the little living that people do on this spinning planet is tragically unimportant. It has been repeated so many times in so many places without plan or deliberation, and there are centuries of it ahead. Some of the simplest episodes in Our Town are therefore touching beyond all reason.” It is noteworthy that Atkinson says nothing in his review about American values or the idyllic beauty of small-town life, but focuses on how the play brings forth meaning through the simple and mundane. He points out that Wilder is able to reveal insights about the universe through the niche of Graver’s Corners. He also states that the actors “preserve the dignity of the human beings they...

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