Our Town Act 3, part 1

Penelope Ann Miller monologue. From a 1989 Lincoln Center production, featuring Spalding Gray, Penelope Ann Miller, Eric Stolz, and Frances Conroy. It was broadcast on TV, PBS, Great Performances series. Part 2 follows.

[@TheBearJew1309]

"Oh mama...just look at me one minute like you really saw me..." This line kills me, because we all do this, all the time

[@scottgahagan8276]

This Lincoln Center production has set the bar for all performances. This excellent cast has no equal and is the most satisfying of all the productions of this classic, so far.

[@electrictroy2010]

The Hollywood version from the 1940s is good

[@slownoman]

One of the truest acts from one of the truest plays in theater history.

[@jaceisham8501]

I read this play with my class sophomore year of high school. Most of us hated it and I'm not saying I'm more appreciative than them, because if it wasn't for a weird coming of age I was having, I probably would have been lazy too. But it honestly made me cry, and when we watched this version, Emily's meltdown tore me to pieces.

[@fullario]

Peter Kreeft once said the tragedy of Our Town is that the language and plot is so simple that it's often assigned in high school English classes, but almost no one reading it at that age understands it. I try to watch Act 3 every year (I'm 36 now) and usually can't get through it without weeping.

[@electrictroy2010]

I watched it age 14 on VHS tape. I understood it well enough. Problem is we treat teens like children but they aren’t. They are young adults .

[@dixiesedgwick89]

Our Town is a timeless piece that everyone should see. It's absolutely brilliant, thought provoking. I' was cast in this play twice, once as Rebecca and once as as Emily. Even though Thornton Wilder was a humanist he pinpoints the whole living and dying we all must walk. No one will escape it. The play doesn't preach, but the impact is clear as a bell to me: You will die today, tomorrow or sometime in the future. Waiting for judgement, we ALL will be judged one day. What will you say to the almighty holy God, and give an account of your life, there is no escape form this. Do you know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?

[@catteadams]

Brilliant. Powerful. Peneople Ann Miller. So wonderful a performance. So this was the performance that Spaulding Gray got such terrible reviews in, that they haunted him his entire life. It's a tough role.

[@victoriahilarious1826]

Man every second counts

[@GaninIsMyName]

Fuckin tear jerker.

[@cathrynm]

OOh, this is a good one.

[@jmd26]

Thornton Wilder summing up what life is about. Shhh. Don't tell any religious nut cases or Trump supporters about the secular humanist themes here. They'll ban this from high schools too.

[@neclark08]

...while I DEARLY LOVE this Humanistic Masterpiece of a play, I HATED this telemovie's casting of Spalding Gray as "Chorus"/Narrator/Mr. Morgan... Each of these roles calls for a slightly different 'Personality: warm, rye, endearing - even slightly eccentric... All that the long-deceased Mr. Gray delivered was a one-note, cold-blooded, reptilian performance - as if he were one of the long-dead 'residents' of the town's hilltop cemetery. Even with it's hokey 'Happy Ending' in which Emily lives, Martha Scott's soliloquy - enriched by Aaron Copland's tremulous score makes Act 3 of the 1940 film version the one to watch...as she tears your beating heart from your body, and holds your ticking Mortality before you as fair warning - "...that it All Goes By TOO Fast..."

[@scottgahagan8276]

Spalding Gray delivered a performance that is far above ALL the others. Such a tragic loss of an artist.

[@electrictroy2010]

No Spalding is lifeless, as if it was Mr. Spock doing the part. The narrator in the Hollywood version is faaaar superior

[@electrictroy2010]

See for yourself : m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/oV6snnSrnKp9sMk

[@jmd26]

So very HOLLYWOOD. Having Emily live renders the play pretty pointless.