Reviews by JMcNulty

Posted by: JMcNulty, 8/12/2008

Newtown Theatre

Useful? +1

This is a treasure. The oldest movie theatre in America! WOW! They have restored it to look great, and it's nice to still have a theatre that shows just one movie at a time, on a big screen. Good sound system too. Plus you can usually get tickets even when the megaplexes have sold out (you could see "Dark Knight" here even when all the multiplexes in the shopping malls had no tickets left).

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Posted by: JMcNulty, 7/19/2008

Newtown Arts Company

Useful? +2

Sometimes you don't realize how great a show is until you see it done by a different company and compare the two.

I saw "Our Town" presented by Newtown Arts Company in 2007 and was THOROUGHLY IMPRESSED. It was a first-rate production that really captured the feel of the play and the message for audiences to take away: realizing how lucky we are to have each other and to cherish it while we have it (and to show each other).

I recently saw the Arden Theatre's production and expected to be blown away -- but I walked away disappointed from their show and even MORE IMPRESSED with what Newtown Arts was able to do.

At the Newtown show, the characters were well defined and the members of each family related well -- the Gibbs family and the Webb family felt like a real mother-father-son-daughter connection. You believed the couples had been married a long time and that there was a real family history. At the Arden's it felt like there were 4 actors in each family all just saying their lines without connection.

The narrator at Newtown Arts came across like he was engaging the audience and was a friendly voice who cared that the message and importance of the story got conveyed. At the Arden, the narrator did a good job but it felt like he was telling a story for the sake of telling the story.

Even the minor characters at Newtown Arts stood out. The drunk choir director at Newtown's show was memorable and made the most of his brief time on stage; the two newspaper boys were brothers played by two different actors and each had his own personality; at the Arden they had the same person play both and just turn his cap around to play the second brother!

Emily Webb is the character who most lives the message of the play -- at Newtown the young lady in the role had the depth to play the girl at all the ages in the three acts. She was able to play the nervousness of a young girl hoping to be asked out, but who can play the depth of a woman who has married, had a child and then died in childbirth of her second. What was impressive was the third act, where her performance wasn't morose about having died; rather, she was inquisitive and wondering why people didn't realize what they had in life. Her gentle realization and delivery of those lines made the message of the play get heard, and not get lost in some regrets about her death.

At the Arden, their Emily couldn't get the nervousness of the young girl, and it became painfully apparent at a moment when she criticizes George Gibbs and immediately regrets it and tries to take it back. She delivered the lines about being sorry she said those things so passively that there was no sense that George asked her out for a soda to help her calm down. Then when they walked into the soda shop and the proprietor said "Emily Webb, why you've been crying!" I had to wonder, because not only hadn't she cried, she hadn't even been that upset! So the lines weren't even making sense.

And in Act 3, the contrast of the tones of the play was clear. Newtown Arts was contemplative and wistful, not morbid. Yes, Emily had died, but the story was in the realization that the people still alive could wake up and appreciate their blessings. The Arden focused on Emily being upset she had died and getting almost angry. I don't think that was the message Thornton Wilder was tring to convey.

Besides the acting, Newtown Arts also did a superior job when it came to costumes (by far!), and also did great lighting and stage effects. As far as the costumes, it looked like research had been done into exactly what people would have worn in the early 1900s, and they gave a true sense of the time period. The Arden's had me scratching my head, as the undertaker and the businessman in Act 3 were dressed in 1990s business suits. (?)

When it came to the lights, Newtown Arts found a way to convey an other-worldliness in Act 3, bathing the cemetery inhabitants in a blue light while keeping the live part of the stage in regular white light. It gave a clear sense that the people in the graves were dead. And at a time when Emily Webb was considering going back to her life on Earth for a day, they used the footlights to bathe her in a ghostly appearance that made the moment visually impactful. The work at the Arden was nothing memorable.

Probably the most impressive thing at the Arden were the guest choirs -- who weren't even really performers from the Arden.

These people at Newtown Arts Company showed they really know how to take a play and make it memorable. They did everything they could to make the story real and to get the message across in a positive way that audiences could deal with and maybe take to heart. I think that shows they really respect the play, respect their craft and most important, respect their audience.

I wish I could go back and see Newtown Arts Company's show again -- I know I'd love it even more!

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