Promise And Problems ‘Our Shining Hour’ Nostalgic, Sincere With Strong Cast, But Too Long, Too Historical

“Our Shining Hour: An American Song” Thursday night, Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre, Schuler Auditorium, North Idaho College

The world premiere of “Our Shining Hour: An American Song,” at the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre, showed both promise and problems Thursday night.

Promise, because this is a nostalgic and heartfelt look at “the greatest generation” and the home front during World War II. The music alone, which includes classic wartime tunes such as “In the Mood” and “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” makes the show worth seeing.

Director and co-creator Timothy Childs has created a number of scenes that are fun and energetic, including some terrific USO jitterbug numbers, and some scenes that are moving and powerful, including the “Goodnight Wherever You Are” number, in which those at home and those on the front exchange pensive and emotional goodnights.

However, the show also has some problems that got in the way of full enjoyment. At the most basic level, the show is too long. It is more like “Our Shining 2-3/4 Hours” including intermission, and I sensed a certain restlessness in the audience as the show slowly built toward the end. This, of course, can be remedied by knocking out a few of the songs and condensing the script, which has a few redundancies in it.

A more knotty problem, for me, is that the show plays out more like an earnest historical pageant than a compelling story.

We see a number of scenes in which people step forward and say things like, “At the beginning of the war, it took two months to build a new ship. Now, it only takes (pause) 10 days.” This kind of approach, in which a show attempts to capture the rich tapestry of an entire historical era, worked beautifully in “Ragtime,” for instance. Here, it needs more compelling personal stories to carry the weight.

The characters don’t seem to be unique individuals as much as “types” - the sweet young war bride, the gung-ho Army paratrooper, the feisty USO singer and the kid brother who is itching to get into the Marines as soon as he turns 18. The things that happen to them seem like precisely the same things that have happened to similar characters in dozens of Hollywood movies of the era. If you can’t guess which character is being set up to be killed in combat, then you aren’t paying nearly enough attention.

Also, the show’s central concept struck me as hard to take seriously. It begins with Jill, as an elderly lady in the present day, announcing that she doesn’t want to accept a “lifetime achievement award” from a war correspondent’s group because she doesn’t believe that the lessons of World War II have anything to teach us today.

Who would think that? Isn’t this the proverbial “straw man,” set up to be knocked down?

Well, it takes Jill the entire show before she accepts what is obvious: That World War II was a tremendously significant experience, not just for our nation, but in the lives of all of the men and women who lived through it.

I may sound harsher than I mean to be, but one of the purposes of a pre-Broadway trial is to identify problems that can be worked on. I think the show has enough audience appeal to go a long way, but it must avoid sounding like the same WWII story we have heard many times before. Writers Childs and Thomas H. Cook need to work a few surprises into the story to keep us on the edges of our seats.

By the way, the principals in the cast, chosen in New York auditions, are uniformly strong. The producers made an especially impressive catch in Jennifer Avery, the tough-talking, cynical - yet strong and sexy - USO singer Rhonda. She is a great singer and an even better actress. She commands the stage.

If this show does make it to Broadway someday, Avery will knock ‘em dead.

“Our Shining Hour: An American Story” continues through Saturday. Call (800) 4-CDA-TIX.