'The Notebook,' 'Our Town': Life, love, death brilliantly reflected on Playhouse Square

A new Broadway musical and a classic Broadway drama mine similar metaphysical territory on Playhouse Square this month with two inventive productions. "The Notebook" Broadway's relatively recent Broadway version of the tear-jerking movie "The Notebook," based on Nicholas Sparks' equally weepy 1996 romance novel of the same name, inaugurates its first national tour, running through September on Playhouse Square's Connor Palace Theatre. The audience at the critic's opening wept and applauded with equal veracity, promising a solid crowd-pleaser as well as a (mostly) critic pleaser. One of the minor problems of the 2004 film, neatly divided into three acts -- young ill-fated romance, adult triumph and end-of-life memory and reconciliation of the meaning of true love -- is that only the last act emerges with poetic, transformative profundity. The earlier parts of the movie, well, not so much. The musical book/script by Bekah Brunstetter wisely weaves all three acts together, which mostly alleviates the seen-it-done-it problem of the first two acts. The earlier part of the film and book follow an honest boy from the wrong side of the tracks in the South (updated here to the Mid-Atlantic region) separated from his soulmate by the girl's snobby parents and war -- originally World War II but updated here to the Vietnam War. The technique of combining different timelines into a single dramatic arch slightly softens the power of the final part of the original story on page and screen -- but this dramatic device makes the overall story seem more original and compelling throughout. Perhaps to clarify three simultaneous storylines (the final one famously played in the film version by Gena Rowlands and James Garner, who reads a romantic "book" to convalescing dementia patient until she finally recognizes the tale as her own loves story with man reading to her), the expeditious co-directors Michael Greif and Schele Williams (and Brunstetter) cast three separate couples enacting the three different parts of the romance. The mixing of three separate parts of the drama into one, as effective as it was, requires a singular ensemble effort on the part of the cast. This makes it particularly hard to single out any single cast member, although stalwart Beau Gravitte, as the senior romantic partner, manages to stand out. As for making a case (artistic-wise and box-office-wise) for "The Notebook" to emerge from the page to the Broadway stage as a musical, Ingrid Michaelson's folk-rock music and conversational lyrics generally succeeds, although the show could do with a few more stand-out musical moments Katie Spelman's choreography is invigorating without betraying the simplicity of the storytelling. Likewise, scenic design by David Zinn and Brett J. Banakis manages inspiring visuals that move well to the fast-pace mingling of scenes connecting three timeframes. There is one particularly jaw-dropping sequence where the two young lovers embrace in a thunderstorm – with an actual onstage rain shower, no less. A bit corny, but powerful. In the film version, the more cynical viewers might have been eager to condemn the sappiness of the entire epic romantic tale, although ultimately being won over at the end, focusing on the tragedy of true love undone by lost memory. But here, the bittersweet three-prong power of "The Notebook," woven into a single dramatic arch, commands the viewer from the beginning, growing only stronger until the last note of the musical's finale. "Our Town" Almost 90 years ago, another stage production arose to historical prominence in a more distinctly three-act tale of life, love and death in smalltown America -- "Our Town," regarded by many theater leaders as the greatest American play ever written. Full of pathos and poetry, "Our Town's" most unique attribute is its seeming absence of uniqueness. Even physically, the play jettisoned some of the core physical embellishments of most plays, certainly those on Broadway, in the 1930s. On a bare stage, a man identified only as Stage Manager (played by a befittingly stoic Christopher Donahue), walks calmly but authoritatively down onto the center stage and introduces the audiences to the mundane but sane life of a small New England town at the turn of the century. Through three acts, little goes on other than, as the program booklet and the playwright foretell, "universal themes of life and death, love and friendship, celebrating the wonder of life's 'biggest smallest' moments." It would be hard to expostulate on that, nor say it any better. But for such a "small" show, it elicits momentous emotions of joy and sadness, sometimes both at once, and beckons deep reflection on the meaning of life. Being that mountings of "Out Town" require little more than a few set pieces, props and lights, with actors visible before taking center stage as their characters (or as their multiple characters), most productions are virtually indestructible to mediocre efforts. Likewise, it would be hard for a production to stand out. But under the subtle inventiveness of acclaimed Tony- and Obie award-winning director Mary Zimmerman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play takes on a new glow of freshness and power, only occasionally overly self-reverential (as other productions of it tend to be). The main visual conceit for the Play House production, with scenic designer Daniel Ostling, is a ceiling of light banks that lower successively at each of the three acts. The meaning of this is not quite clear, but the effect is one of focus and interest. And focus and interest seems to be the major critical advantage and reason to see this theatrical milestone — at least one more time. Contact Howard Gollop at howieeg@gmail.com.