Applying a slick, modern spin to an established classic is a valid undertaking, but it’s a project predicated on an audience’s (over-) familiarity with the text in question.
It’s said that Our Town (1938) by Thornton Wilder has been performed somewhere in the United States every night since its premiere, which explains the rapturous off-Broadway reception given to this reworking by actor-director David Cromer. UK audiences, however, are likely to have much less knowledge of the original and will thus be left grievously short-changed, not to mention somewhat confused.
Wilder’s enduring achievement is to extract the transcendent from the everyday, celebrating the infinite richness of ‘ordinary’ life through vivid evocation of a small town in early 20 century New Hampshire. It’s the very specificity of this nondescript, low-on-action place that makes it universal, but Cromer refuses to trust Wilder on this. Thus we have modern dress and a Babel of regional accents from around the UK; instead of this representing ‘everywhere’, we’re left nowhere, especially with a whole company’s worth of under-energised acting.
Wilder had great fun playing with theatrical convention: the narrator character, in the form of the Stage Manager, stops the action at will and provides idiosyncratic footnotes. Cromer takes this delightful part himself and, again, pushes it too far. Everything now seems glib and desultory, and it’s punishing to sit through the three acts with the house lights up.
A minor coup de theatre does nothing but undermine the terrifying poignancy of the finale. The original is shattering in its quiet simplicity, whereas this is just smugly pleased with itself.
Until Nov 29 (020 7359 4404, almeida.co.uk)
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