Part of the magic of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is its great simplicity. In Jim Parsons’ (Stage Manager), facile, relaxed, direct addresses to the audience lie the profound themes and templates of our lives. The revival of Our Town directed by Kenny Leon with a glittering cast of renowned film, TV and stage actors, reinforces the currency and vitality of Wilder’s focus on human lives, and the seconds, minutes, hours and days human beings strike fire then are extinguished forever, eventually forgotten as the universe spins away from itself. A play about the cosmic journey of stars and their particle parts in human form in a small representational town on earth, Our Town is iconic. Leon’s iteration of this must see production runs at the Ethel Barrymore Theater until January 19th.

The three act play is in its fifth Broadway revival since the play premiered in the 1930s. This most quintessential of American plays appeared on Broadway when the United States was in the tail end of the Depression during a period of isolationism, and concepts about Eugenics from American researchers had been adopted by the Third Reich to effect their legal platform for genocide. At a curious turning point in American history before a conflict to come, Wilder’s work about life and death in small town Grovers Corners in the fiercely independent state of New Hampshire represented a symbolic microcosm of life everywhere. Perhaps, the play’s themes, especially in the third act were a harbinger, and a warning. In its theme, “we must appreciate life with every breath,” was prescient because WWII was coming to remove millions in a devastation that was incalculable, noted by many as the “deadliest conflict in human history.”

Despite its stark ending and in your face “memento mori,” Wilder’s play found and finds an appreciative audience because of its universality and unabashed assertions about our mortality, walking unconsciousness, and refusal to remain “awake” to the preciousness of our lives.

Indeed, the play has continued to be widely read and performed globally in commercial theater, as well as educational institutions. Leon’s production is no less riveting than other revivals and is even more elucidating and vital in its stylistic dramatic urgency. This is especially so at this point in time, at the eve of a crucial period in our body politic, when we are deciding between two pathways. Do we want to continue to uphold the inexorable verities expressed in Wilder’s themes about living with as much equanimity as possible in a democratic nation that respects the peaceful transfer of power as Grovers Corners symbolizes in Leon’s production? Or do we jettison the rule of law, and the peaceful transfer of power in the US Constitution for a dictatorship in which not all lives are equal or valuable but one life must be bowed down to unequivocally?

Leon’s direction stands in with the former, primarily in the production’s inclusiveness of a diverse group of actors representing Grover’s Corner’s accepting, and non judgmental townsfolk as they go about their business. The business of being human, Wilder divides into three segments (Daily Life, Love and Marriage, Death). Through the omnipotent Stage Manager, which Jim Parsons portrays with a low-key, pleasant avuncular and philosophical style, we quiver at his ironic, pointed rendering of life on this planet.

At the top of the play, the brisk, time-conscious stage manager, after detailing the ancient geological foundation of Grovers Corners, introduces us to the two families which Wilder highlights throughout the play to note their arc of development. Doc Gibbs (Billy Eugene Jones), the local physician, and Mr. Webb (Richard Thomas), the editor of the Sentinel are neighbors. At the turn of the century their wives, like most married women of the time, stay at home, do the housework and prepare meals, none of which is relieved by modern mechanical devices. We learn Mrs. Gibbs (MIchelle Wilson), and Mrs. Webb (Katie Holmes), “vote indirect,” which is to say women are considered incapable of making a rational voting decision.

However, the Stage Manager’s two words hold more weight than he seemingly intends to give them. Instead, he glides by the import of sociopolitical trends because it is unrelated to the cosmic picture alluded to by Rebecca Gibbs (Safiya Kaijya Harris), at the end of Act I. Indeed, the universal themes Wilder drives at do not focus on specific political details. Wisely, Leon takes his cues from the script having Parson’s Manager speak about the titles of the acts as dispassionately and unnuanced as possible. Importantly, Leon “gets” that the functioning of the town, symbolically rendered and opaquely stylized is how Wilder achieves the ultimate impact of the powerful conclusion about appreciating life each day we live it, as insignificant and boring as it may seem at times.

After we meet the children at a breakfast prepared by Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Webb via pantomime, the Stage Manager provides the locations of key places like the Post Office, the newspaper office, etc., and reminds us of the town routines, i.e. the train’s arrival and departure, milk and paper deliveries, etc. In the another part of the act, we meet the children who get hooked up in Act II, George Gibbs (Ephraim Sykes), and Emily Webb (Zoey Deutch).

Also, clarified is the town “problem,” Simon Stimpson (Donald Webber, Jr.), who we meet as the play opens when Simon Stimpson conducts the choir in a lovely song. Stimpson becomes the subject of gossip because choir members know he drinks and is drunk a good deal of the time. Mrs. Soames (Julie Halston) gossips about Stimpson and is hushed up by Mrs Gibbs, who tells a little white lie that Stimpson is getting better, then later tells her husband he is getting worse. Webber, Jr. is masterful in the small part. Clues are given about Stimpson’s future, as the character is referred by townspeople in Act I, with some questioning and not knowing “how that’ll end.” Eventually, the Stage Manager shows us how it “ends,” in Act III with Stimpson commenting about life and Mrs. Gibbs responding to him. Whose view should we accept? It, like this production, is open to interpretation.

Three years pass between Act I and Act II, and Parson’s Manager officiates at the marriage between Emily Webb and George Webb, after showing the event which reveals that these two individuals are special and their relationship which is “interesting” is grounded in being truthful to one another. The marriage scene which has been a bit tweaked and slimmed down from the original play, does include the Stage Manager philosophically discussing marriage and particularly George and Emily’s marriage when he says, in part, that he has married over two hundred couples and continues, “Do I believe in it? I don’t know. Once in a thousand times it’s interesting.” Again, we realize the profound comment and question what “interesting,” means.

In the last act which the production speeds to with no intermission as it clocks in at a spare one hour and forty-five minutes, Wilder’s vaguely spiritual metaphors are touching and poignant, despite the production’s bare bones lack of sentimentality. Warning, here is the spoiler, so don’t read the rest of the review if you are unfamiliar with Our Town.

Wilder’s third act resonates with symbols of death, as “the Dead” sit together on chairs as Parson’s unemotional Stage Manager describes the hillside cemetery. Importantly, the lack of Parsons’ emotion stirs the audience deeply. And in Leon’s production, the stylization in the previous acts makes the power of Emily’s return to see and live through her 12th birthday even more potent. Newly dead in childbirth, the Stage Manager gives Emily the privilege, which he says all the dead have, to return to a day in her life to relive it. The morning of her birthday, Emily watches herself, symbolically live without the realization that she will be dead in less than two decades later.

After commenting at how young her parents look and recognizing their love and affection, her pain at her obliviousness to life’s beauty overcomes her and she wants to leave to go back to the cemetery, a lovely spot where her brother Wally, Mrs. Gibbs, Simon Stimpson and Mrs. Soames wait for “something to come out clear.”

Emily’s dialogue is breathtaking and Deutch gets through it with less emotion and passion than is probably required for the audience to feel the reality of her words. “So all that was going on, and we never noticed.” And perhaps more emotion is needed as Emily asks the Stage Manager, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?” The audience in shock silently answers for itself as the Stage Manager responds.

This is the cruel and truthful heart of the play, especially experiencing it through the character of Emily and the Stage Manager’s comforting but remote words which somehow fall ironically when Parsons says, “No. The saints and poets,maybe – they do some.” However, only in death does Emily realize the suffering pain of not appreciating and being grateful for every fabulous, wondrous moment of life.

Certainly, Wilder needs to hit his audience over the head, and they walk out silently receiving the message, then days later forget it. However, for the moments when Leon, Parsons, the cast and the superb and lovely lighting and staging hold us, we “get it.” And we are grateful for teachable moments received through the actors’ fine efforts, the creative team’s craft and Leon’s minimalist stylization. And we appreciate the rich fullness of each gesture, word and grace delivered to make us get in touch with ourselves in our own Grovers Corners’ life.

Kudos to all involved in this magical production. Thornton Wilder’s Our Town runs one hour forty-five minutes without an intermission at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street). https://www.ourtownbroadway.com/?gad_source=1&gclsrc=ds