An American stage classic with a beating heart and lifeline that gives way to small town life with a homespun and atypical perspective, Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" is a gripping, admired, determined work enhanced by perfunctorily etched characters, dialogue and situations that raise a laugh, a remembrance, a connection, an impact and oh yes, lots and lots of tears, the kind that stream steadily down your face and are impossible to hold back no matter how hard you try to make them stop, furiously wipe your cheek or quickly wish them away.
Then again, that's the point, isn't it?
As theatre, this iconic 1938 stage play taps into everyone's memory with unforgettable warmth, collective simplicity, impassioned intimacy and idyllic observation.
It stirs.
It moves.
It trickles.
It engages.
It excites.
It articulates.
It celebrates.
It is afresh with spirit, pace, pitch and clarity.
At Sharon Playhouse, the experience of seeing "Our Town" played out with thespian inhabitance and deeply felt poignancy and accompanying honesty, transforms this revival into an epic night (or afternoon) of theatre brilliantly balanced by a vast, energetic five-star dramatization with a narrative neatness and sweep schooled in the art of storytelling that's beautifully acted, performed and directed throughout.
This is theatre - real theatre - brimming with poetic depth, rising accomplishment, elated awe, marshalled detail and justified legacy.
Set in the fictional village of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, "Our Town" is divided into three acts - Daily Life, Love and Marriage and Death and Eternity. As shaped by Wilder, it portrays the everyday lives of its citizens from 1901 through 1913 including the childhood friendship and blossoming romance of George Gibbs and Emily Webb which ends in marriage at the conclusion of Act II.
With the start of Act III, however, Emily, who has lost her life in childbirth takes her place among the dead in a new part of the hilltop cemetery alongside Mrs. Gibbs, Mr. Stimson and Mrs. Soames, among others. Here, she is granted the opportunity to revisit one very special day in her life only to discover upon her return to the past that she never fully appreciated everything that she possessed in life until she finally lost it.
Wilder, as playwright, fills his play with dialogue and eloquent, narrated passages that fuel "Our Town" with wisdoms, opinions, ideas and theories that resonate, transform, divide, embellish and reflect. There's real charm, sincerity and beauty here, set forth by conscientious verbiage and experiences about ordinary life that are universal, individual, confident and important.
Theatrically, the three-act play breaks down "the fourth wall of staging" by setting the action inside the actual theater where "Our Town" is being performed orchestrated by the main character of the Stage Manager who directly addresses the audience, narrates the ongoing action, fields questions from strategically placed citizens of Grover's Corners and when necessary, plays various characters in the ongoing story.
As dictated by Wilder, the production is performed mostly on a bare stage where chairs, tables, door frames and stairways are minimal. And with few exceptions, the entire cast is instructed to mime their everyday actions without the use of any props.
Staging "Our Town," director Andrus Nichols thrusts Wilder's loving, committed portrait of ordinary people into the limelight with guided, assured, homespun tenderness, lilt and imagination. Directorially, she taps into the play's collective Americana and remembrance with brush strokes, colors, beats and rhythms that lend themselves nicely to the ongoing story, its wisdom, its beauty, its virtues, its irony, its simpleness and its unblemished reality.
There is poetry and motion behind the mathematics of her staging, embellished by ideas, humor, drama, nostalgia and flights of fancy that challenge the brain, warm the heart and deftly address the high level of intelligence prevalent in Wilder's writing.
With the entire cast in top form, Andrus spans the Grover's Corners timeline, measure by measure, scene by scene and act by act with a lofty proudness and natural warmth that solidifies its bona fide greatness, its profound questions about the meaning of life itself, its classism, its romanticism, its history, its scope and its intellectual analysis and position.
As "Our Town" evolves, the everyday life of the characters and the bonds that exist between every single one of them are blocked, staged and performed with the simplicity, drive and intervening pantomime of Wilder's conceit. It's a brilliantly realized and energetic process that Andrus recreates within the parameters of time and space aided by expertly time sound cues, lighting effects and scene changes, many of which are arranged and verbally addressed by the Stage Manager.
The climatic third act, played out against the backdrop of a hilltop cemetery, is pure genius. Here, Andrus interprets Wilder's finality of human life with particularly touching, tearful regard that not only cements the last fated moments of the deceased onstage characters but those who must continue living life without them.
It's chilling. It's poignant. It's urgent. It's raw. It's real. It's imbued with a piercing significance and immediacy that is completely unforgettable.
In the role of the Stage Manager, the narrator who introduces her audience to the small-town life and populace of Grover's Corners, Jane Kaczmarek invests her dialogue and commentary with a confident, observant, idyllic style and rhythm that trusts "Our Town" into orbit.
She's natural. She's personable. She's real. She's honest. She's charming. She's intimate. She's spontaneous. She's instinctive. She's direct. She's good-natured. She's passionate. She's inventive.
It's a fully appreciated turn - American classic with wonderful, universal appeal - that holds true to Wilder's original concept and intent, mixed with perfectly timed conjecture, vision, announcement and lecture that the actress grounds and implements with feeling, dash, insight and thoughtfulness.
Samantha Steinmetz, in the role of Emily Webb, offers an exquisite, spellbinding dramatic turn, delivering the play's accompanying action, essence and illusion with open heart, open mind and intuitive, nostalgic menagerie. It's a performance that is affectionately portrayed and acted with beautifully modulated shifts of character and changing moods, leading up to an Act III graveyard denouement that Wilder, if he were alive today, would applaud with great engouement and pride.
As George Gibbs, Eric Bryant captures the spirit and feel of his important, simply crafted character with unwavering skill, charm, charisma and vulnerability. It's an intimate, tender-hearted performance that the actor skillfully weaves with an in-the-moment testimony and tilt, drawing you into a story that ends in tragedy with the death of his beloved Emily.
Other fine performances are delivered by Marinell Madden-Crippen (Mrs. Gibbs), Deron Bayer (Doc Gibbs), Dawn Stern (Mrs. Webb), Lori Evans (Mrs. Soames), Carter McCabe (Si Crowell), Katherine Almquist (Professor Willard), Michael Kevin Baldwin (Simon Stimson), Dick Terhune (Editor Webb) and Kennadi Mitchell (Rebecca Gibbs). Every one of them move through "Our Town" with a non-stop ease, confidence and trueness completely in sync with the concept, staging, drama and commitment set forth in the "Our Town" play script.
One of the most important, beautifully staged productions of the 2023 regional theatre season, "Our Town," at Sharon Playhouse, pays homage to playwright Thornton Wilder with keyhole, immersive bravura, insight and inspiration.
It is idealistic. It is relevant. It is timely. It is complex. It is hypnotic.
It invites you to think about life and how you choose to live it. Its bruising seriousness is testament to the power of its storytelling. It triumphs with extraordinary accomplishment. It's an impressive, sprawling piece of work that lingers in memory long after it has ended and has been performed.
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