Summary
American Classic has its charms, but its earnest love for the dramatic arts comes through almost too strongly in its premiere, making the character drama feel less grounded and authentic than it should.
If nothing else, American Classic has a love for theatre in its very bones. It’s probably worth pointing this out, since so many shows are about things only cursorily, as a way to excuse the character-driven story really being told. At least in its two-part premiere (Episodes 1 and 2 of the eight-part MGM+ series dropped together), American Classic is the exact opposite. Its characters exist only to facilitate an earnest ode to the dramatic arts. But you have to wonder how many people care about theatre quite this much.
In this show, everyone loves the theatre. And I mean everyone. It seems to exist in some bizarre pocket dimension where it’s the only art form that has ever existed. This particularly manifests in Episode 2, since that’s when protagonist Richard Bean really settles on the idea of honouring his recently deceased, theatre-founding mother by putting on a grand performance of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town (itself, incidentally, the subject of a recent episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, of all things.)
Episode 1, which is the better of the two opening half-hours, is more of an introduction to Bean himself. A Tony-winning actor, he’s enjoying a relatively well-received Broadway run of King Lear but manages to publicly disgrace himself by aggressively monologuing Shakespeare at a long-time nemesis critic from The New York Times. This stuff is all quite funny. Kline plays the narcissistic, slightly camp star – at one point he rejects an accusation of homophobia by claiming that being a theatre actor is the most gay it’s possible to be without being gay – really well, and the tone of Richard being the only person in every room who takes theatre quite so seriously – including his presumably long-suffering agent, Alvy – works.
But then Richard gets a call from his brother, Jon, to inform him that their mother has died. The best gag of the premiere – “Did she read the review?” – isn’t rivalled because Richard’s return to his home town of Millsburg, Pennsylvania resituates him in a new – to us – environment where everyone finds him and his work as important as he does. Okay, maybe not everyone. Jon isn’t totally keen, and Jon’s wife, Kristen, isn’t either, but that dynamic is complicated a bit by the fact that Richard and Kristen used to date back in the day. But in a broad sense, Richard’s aching love for theatre is shared by everyone in Millsburg, and so his idea to honor his late mother with a grand performance that’ll save the local family theatre is met with the kind of fervour that you can scarcely imagine happening anywhere in the world, at least not in 2026.
And that’s the problem. American Classic is incredibly sincere, so much so that it’s difficult to dislike, but it’s also so insular in its focus and effusive in its love for theatre that it never quite rings true. It doesn’t seem all that interested in the subtext of a play like Our Town, but more in the performance of reading it aloud. Richard isn’t the only character who spontaneously bursts into monologue, and there’s a distressing lack of people who are shocked when it happens. It makes Millburg feel like no place that has existed since the turn of the previous century.
I almost want to like this show more than I did in Episodes 1 and 2. Richard and Jon’s father, Linus, is suffering from dementia and has started coming out of the closet daily because he can’t recall the previous time, which is a funny, oddly charming idea. But whenever he’s on-screen, all he talks about for the most part is theatre! Jon and Kristen’s teenage daughter, Miranda, sometimes threatens to provide a Gen Z perspective, but she’s equally swayed by any mention of the performing arts, so any time she tries to mention anything outside the sphere of Millsburg, she’s immediately seduced back into Richard’s way of thinking. The whole show seems to be like that.
I’m sure that the production of Our Town will have its moments. That’s mostly where the premiere leaves things, with Richard beginning to get a full grip of what’s required, with help – albeit some of it reluctant – from friends and family. I’m sure there will be sweet scenes, and I’m sure it’ll all work out. But thus far, I’m not sure the process will be especially illuminating.
