THEATER REVIEW : Timeless Truths of ‘Our Town’ Come Alive in Fresh Staging

Writer Calvin Trillin is a dutiful father who has attended countless school plays. He confessed recently in the New Yorker that he feels envy toward people who have seen only one or two productions of “Our Town.”

One of the most popular plays in the American repertory, “Our Town” is so relentlessly produced because of its perfect simplicity, both in its prop-less setting and its aesthetic. Written in 1938 as the country prepared for war, Thornton Wilder reached back to 1901 to depict Grover’s Corner, N.H., an uncomplicated place where culture meant “some girls who play the piano at high school commencement.” As if writing a parable, Wilder reduced life to its essence--to love and death--in order to let his audience see its richness.

To inaugurate its 30th anniversary season, Theatre Forty has mounted a clear, straightforward and moving production of “Our Town.” Director Stephen Tobolowsky approaches this G-rated masterwork as if it had never been produced before. (Tobolowsky, incidentally, was the unforgettable Ned Ryerson in another story of small-town America, the film “Groundhog Day.”)

The story of Grover’s Corner is whisked along by the Stage Manager (Dee Croxton), who narrates as if she were both of the town and yet from a place far beyond it, a tolerant and all-knowing place very much like the one the dead of the town inhabit in the play’s ingenious third act.

The cast is wisely light-handed with this ultra-familiar material. Unfortunately, Croxton is a little too light-handed. As the Stage Manager (usually played by a man), her detachment is merely bland; her performance resembles that of a technically proficient teacher who never ignites the material.

The heart of the story, of course, belongs to the lovers Emily Webb (Gwendolyn Sanford) and George Gibbs (Jason Horst), told in their archetypal scenes at the soda fountain and the church altar. Both actors perform the difficult trick of being symbols without being ciphers, and they touch the unadulterated truth that is in the text. The wedding--in which Emily panics and begs her father to let her stay on with him--is as moving and fundamental as any real wedding could be.

The two fathers, Dr. Gibbs (Richard Hoyt Miller) and Mr. Webb (David Hunt Stafford, looking a little like Calvin Trillin) are also good, as is the town malcontent, the ever fascinating church organist Simon Stimson (Gene Ross).

In the third act, the dead Emily goes back to relive one ordinary day in her life. With her new understanding of mortality, she finds even the most ordinary day too terrible and wonderful to bear, even for a moment. Wilder sends us out of the theater spinning with the knowledge of what we barely appreciate day-to-day, and he opens a door to the spiritual life that so little preoccupies the inhabitants of Grover’s Corner. Theatre Forty delivers a glimpse of that life, visible for anyone who hasn’t been to “Our Town” one too many times.

* “Our Town,” Theatre Forty, Beverly Hills High School campus, 241 Moreno Drive, Thur.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. Ends Oct. 8. $14-$17. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.