Seeking Life’s Delicate Balance

“Some people ain’t made for small-town life.”

In a different time and place, under a darker sky, this sentiment could have been directed at Matthew Shepard, the martyred subject of “The Laramie Project.” That play makes its Southern California premiere later this summer at the La Jolla Playhouse, once again under the artistic directorship of Des McAnuff.

But no, these are the words of kindly Doc Gibbs, referring to Grover’s Corners’ most nakedly unhappy resident: choir director Simon Stimson. In Michael Greif’s staging of “Our Town,” which opened the new La Jolla Playhouse season Sunday, Stimson is portrayed, wonderfully, by Peter Bartlett. His weary mutterings, baleful eyes and alcohol-impaired, subtly sloshed consonants extract every nugget of rueful humor in this misplaced aesthete, a probable closet case (as many comp lit types have speculated) and an eventual suicide.

All was never sweetness and light in Thornton Wilder’s 1938 classic. But Greif takes care to nudge his production toward bittersweetness, especially regarding its most tragic soul. Tellingly, he places Stimson downstage front and center at play’s end. The Stage Manager, played by Lizan Mitchell, ends up a little off to the right.

It’s a reasonably effective rendition, clean-lined and straightforwardly moving. Several performances buoy the ritualistic activity depicted: Emily Bergl’s soulful, exacting Emily; Carson Elrod’s quirky, full-of-himself George; Tom McGowan’s Editor Webb (despite a shaky New Hampshah dialect); Mitchell’s no-nonsense, efficient Stage Manager, almost too self-effacing.

With a season opener, though, and with this well-rubbed touchstone of a title, you wouldn’t mind something to make you experience Wilder’s universe in a new way. The production isn’t stale, but it’s not long on quiet revelations or surprises, either, beyond Bartlett’s unusually sharp work as Stimson.

The play carried the working title “Our Village” for a while, and in Wilder’s eyes, it takes a village to raise a townful of people who don’t have a clue. That sounds fatalistic, and the play really isn’t (though, famously, it depressed Eleanor Roosevelt plenty). The message is simple: Humans don’t develop an appreciation for the little things in life until they’re dead.

The play was, is and always shall be a most idiosyncratic masterwork, one that risks both heavy pathos and easy cynicism in the playing. (The latter met its match in the late 1980s, when Spalding Gray snided his way through the role of Stage Manager on Broadway.)

Emily’s return to her childhood, and her subsequent farewell to all things earthbound, has been slaughtered by any number of performers over the years. “Our Town” doesn’t respond well to jolly, folksy comedy or gut-wrenching pain. (You want cornball extremes on similar themes, rent “It’s a Wonderful Life.” In his introduction to his one-act “The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden,” a source of several “Our Town” motifs, Wilder warned against performances “drenched in tears, ostentatious piety and a kind of heroic self-pity.”

Greif wisely stays clear of such excesses. Mitchell, last on stage at the Playhouse in “Having Our Say,” doesn’t expend an ounce of energy in the wrong direction. Having an African American woman play this role, with a mostly Anglo cast behind her, lends an anthropological overlay to the proceedings. See how white it was there, back then? See what a dear, ordinary, monochromatic fictional town New Hampshire had on its map?

Scenic designer Mark Wendland adds a witty touch to his not-really-bare stage: In the wings we see painted flats depicting various Grover’s Corners locales: the church, a horse-and-buggy and the like. “Our Town” always was a lighting designer’s show, and James F. Ingalls responds with an artfully developed lighting scheme, pouring on the false nostalgic honeyed hues for Emily’s return to Earth in Act 3.

That scene, however, is one wherein Greif hasn’t done the necessary work. Rhythmically it’s a little flat, a little off. If this scene (not the play’s best, merely its most blunt) doesn’t pop out in a creepy and beautiful and sad way, you’re left with a feeling of disappointment not unlike Emily’s.

As it is, the most indelible Grover’s Corners resident is Bartlett’s Stimson, a small gem of a performance.

* “Our Town,” La Jolla Playhouse, Mandell Weiss Theatre, La Jolla Village Drive at Torrey Pines Road, UC San Diego, San Diego. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends June 17. $19-$42. (858) 550-1010. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

Lizan Mitchell: Stage Manager

Emily Bergl: Emily Webb

Carson Elrod: George Gibbs

Jonathan Fried: Dr. Gibbs

Jeanne Paulsen: Mrs. Gibbs

Tom McGowan: Mr. Webb

Kate Fuglei: Mrs. Webb

Peter Bartlett: Simon Stimson

Written by Thornton Wilder. Directed by Michael Greif. Scenic design by Mark Wendland. Costumes by Brandin Baron. Lighting by James F. Ingalls. Musical director G. Scott Lacy. Stage manager Mark Tynan.