STILL WORTH AN EXTENDED VISIT.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

IT HELPS, of course, that Paul Newman, one of America's most beloved performers, plays the Stage Manager, Thornton Wilder's Ringmaster of Life in Showtime's production of ``Our Town,'' 1938's Pulitzer Prize-winning play that, in many cases, still rings true today.

The Stage Manager introduces the play (a clever device written off as rote postmodernism today), explicates many of its themes, and yet manages to be empathetic to both his characters and our current human condition.

Grover's Corners, N.H., Wilder's mythical setting, remains home to all our aspirations - as the Godfathers put it in a great post-punk song, ``Birth School Work Death'' (throw in ``love'' and ``gossip'' and you've defined it perfectly) - and as the Stage Manager notes with a weary sigh, ``Once, in a thousand times, it's interesting.''

Or maybe it's always a matter of life and death. Showtime's film adaptation of a Broadway production of ``Our Town'' burrows through the minutiae. The mundane courtship examined here serves as a decent enough proxy for all of our love affairs, as do the humdrum mornings, evenings and quiet moments that the citizens of Grover's Corners endure and enjoy - as do we, to this day.

Wilder's play takes place on an essentially bare stage. In director James Naughton's production (as an actor, he appeared in a TV adaptation of ``The Glass Menagerie,'' a play frequently compared to ``Our Town''), stagehands move props about as Newman enters, still perusing his script. He introduces the town and its people - including those whose futures are to be short-lived - and invites us to listen in on two families, the Gibbses and the Webbs, as they go about their unremarkable days.

George Gibbs (Ben Fox) and Emily Webb (Maggie Lacey) will soon take steps toward uniting their lives. Emily will fretfully ask her mother (Jane Curtin) if she's pretty; ``You are pretty enough for all normal purposes'' will be the pragmatic reply. George, weighing his options between venturing out into the big wide world for new adventures and remaining in town with Emily, philosophizes, ``New people probably aren't any better than old ones.''

``Our Town'' manages the tricky feat of reveling in its artifice - there's never a moment you're not aware you're watching a play - while utterly celebrating that which is ``real'' in life. Though it takes place at the turn of the 20th century, it remains relevant at the turn of the 21st, and Newman and his cast ensure that every moment resonates today, and as long as we all are able to feel.

OUR TOWN - Four stars

What: Thornton Wilder's enduring classic reflecting on the panoply of small-town life, starring Paul Newman.

Where: Showtime.

When: 8 tonight; also Monday.

In a nutshell: Whether you find Wilder's play profound or hokey, you can't help but be moved.

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Photo:

Paul Newman plays the Stage Manager in ``Our Town,'' which was taped for Showtime during the play's recent Broadway run.