The divisions between men and women has been diminished by the common-day uniform of denim jeans and T-shirts, a point driven home to me by a historic dance teacher one day at the UCLA Jane Austen ball. Director David Cromer embraces these contemporary conventions in his interpreation of Thorton Wilder’s 1938 “Our Town” at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica.

Featuring Academy Award-winning Helen Hunt as the stage manager, this cast includes locals as well as many of the original cast from his Chicago/New York productions. The Broad Stage’s familiar layout and cushy seats have been overlaid with scaffolding and a flat wood stage. Two rows of seats are at stage level and the space between them serve as pathways for performers to set, walk and even run rambunctiously. For this reason, don’t be late. Seating is only at the very beginning and at intermissions.

Risers on three sides of the stage afford more seating and the balcony is only half open. This reportedly reduces seating to a precious 375 seats (from 499). This creates a thrust type staging, but the length and narrowness make seeing all the action hard. Perhaps the best seats are in the balcony where you’d still be too close to the parts staged there.

Yet this is all part of Cromer’s scheme–to immerse the audience and break down the barriers–social, generational and even spatial. On opening night, Hunt was dressed in a tailored medium blue shirt (untucked), faded black jeans and black boots. The two mothers, Mrs. Gibbs (Lori Myers) and Mrs. Webb (Kati Brazda) are also dressed in jeans and casual shirts. Both had aprons. The daughter, Emily Webb (Jennifer Grace), is also in pants and jeans, something that would be unlikely in 1901. The girls and women walk like the boys and men, something that wouldn’t be likely if the girls and women were wearing long dresses. The women do at times appear in dresses such as during the wedding. And this is a build-up to a contrast between the past and the here and now.

Despite the problems with staging and the tendency for the high ceilings to swallow up the dialogue (other patrons complained although I heard everything well enough myself), this Los Angeles premiere of Cromer’s production of this Pulitzer Prize-winning play, is worth seeing.  Grover’s Corners is every town USA and the play should serve as a periodic reminder for every one to live life, value even the simple moments and love fully.

The production isn’t for the timid. You’ll be up close and personal with the actors; in many cases you could easily reach out and touch them. Hunt is slender and delicately angular. Her manner is matter-of-fact and her long hair falls casually down her back and shoulders. Hunt once played the role of Emily, the girl whose life we follow. Grace’s Emily isn’t too precocious and as her love, George Gibbs, James McMenamin has a lunkish charm. Still when she’s annoyed with George, her swinging ponytail and wide-gaited walk are clearly something of this era where women regularly wear pants, than of the early 1900s.

We all need a reminder that everyone should slow down and savor life for it is too often over too quickly and without warning.

“Our Town” continues until 12 February 2012 at the Broad Stage, Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th Street, Santa Monica. For more information, call (310) 434-3412 or go to http://www.thebroadstage.com.