Out of Town
Actors Bridge production of Thornton Wilder classic holds up, despite a few misfires
by Martin Brady
Our Town
Presented by
Actors Bridge Ensemble
Through Aug. 1
at the Darkhorse Theater
Thornton Wilder's Our Town is such a venerable piece of theater that it pretty much defies any new textual analysis. Despite mixed critical reception to its New York debut in 1938, it won a Pulitzer Prize and went on to take its place in the front ranks of 20th century dramatic literature. It's been performed so often by now, in professional, college, high school and community theaters, that the news of yet another production might be greeted with contained enthusiasm.
Nevertheless, Actors Bridge Ensemble artistic director Bill Feehely has found reason enough to mount the classic, which opened last weekend at the Darkhorse Theater. Citing the modern-day struggle with "the meaning of community in an ever widening world," Feehely's production notes suggest that Our Town "should be visited again and again at different stages in one's life as a reminder of how we live and what we're missing."
It's hard to disagree. Wilder's viewpoint is unassailably universal: we're so busy going about the business of living that we usually overlook the golden moments that are right in front of our eyes. For all its celebration of humanity, Wilder's people-centric vision is also a disconcerting one, forcing the viewer to ponder heavy, emotional questions of family and friendship, how we express our love and how we treat our fellow human beings.
The play is also a godsend to performing groups saddled with strained budgets. In his very innovative approach—minimalist setting and costumes—Wilder ensures low production costs while keeping the focus on a good-sized cast of characters and his broader themes.
The spirit of the new ABE version is certainly consonant with Wilder's own thematic emphasis. By the time we get to the deeper revelations of Act 3—with its aura of death, its talking ghosts and its Capra-like cemetery darkness—we've gotten much from the master playwright's words. Yet the first two acts, building up to that point, are only about half as powerful.
Feehely takes a major liberty with his casting of Tom Mason in the pivotal role of Stage Manager. With his hippie ponytail and folksy grin, his Resophonic guitar slung around his neck for occasional accompaniment, Mason comes up against the traditional image of the restrained, bemused, all-knowing New Englander who usually narrates this play. In five American-made film and TV features, spanning from 1940 to 2003, the Stage Manager has been played by Paul Newman, Hal Holbrook, Spalding Gray, Art Carney and the little-known Frank Craven, who set the popular standard for this portrayal in the Hollywood original directed by Sam Wood. Mason musters up plenty of warmth, and since we're in Nashville, maybe there's something expectedly right about experimenting with that most indigenous of icons: the singer-songwriter.
If Mason stands apart, the opening of this production otherwise works the small-town, turn-of-the-20th-century New Hampshire ambience in typical fashion. We know we're in Grover's Corners, and the story plays out accordingly in its intended time and place. Yet the cast makes no attempt to effect the appropriate regional accents, and the costuming is hodgepodge—even contemporary in places. Combined with Mason's somewhat fish-out-of-water presence, this leaves us with the feeling that Feehely has overlooked Wilder's built-in atheatricality and specificity of setting in an attempt to be innovative simply for the sake of doing something different.
Innovation's an OK thing, as long as it's successful, but that's not always the case here. Feehely's ensemble plays well enough together, notably in working the atmospheric sound effects and pantomimed action that further define Wilder's insistence on elemental simplicity. Yet the casting seems motley—devoid of attention to age in some roles—and it's hard to believe that this was part of a preconceived plan. Either way, it puts undue strain on the viewer, though this wouldn't matter as much if the quality of acting weren't so mixed.
Jessica Whitney, as the story's leading character Emily Webb, graces us with sensually appealing girlishness. Hers is a raw, young talent, and for every moment when she telegraphs actorly insecurity, there's another when she tugs at the audience's heartstrings. Most importantly, she makes the successful transition from the play's early innocence to its later desperate poignancy. As her parents, Pacer Harp and Evelyn Blythe are gently assured and wholesomely human. Also very good is Ralph Henley in dual roles, veering from the whimsical cartoonishness of Prof. Willard to the alcoholic and ultimately suicidal pathos of church organist Simon Stimson.
R. Davis Brunson is George Gibbs, Emily's childhood sweetheart. He's cast well physically, his presence residing somewhere between Tobey Maguire and Quentin Tarantino. But his performance, however efficient, feels bland; it lacks the tenderness and naive romance one would expect of his character. Rachel Agee and Thom Zelenka, as Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs, are more colorless than even staid New England Protestants need to be. Agee fares the better of the two, by virtue of her spooky Act 3 graveyard scene, yet both otherwise appear to go through the motions without evoking much character. Zelenka's reading is just that—a reading—with little weight behind his dialogue. Janet McMahan, Lily Heine and Chris Roberts add some decent support in smaller roles.
Hanging window frames, stepladders, a few tables and chairs and a large back-wall tapestry of a quaint village form the impressionistic set. The Darkhorse stage ends up looking a little cramped, though the actors work around that well enough. Richard K. Davis designed the prosaic lighting scheme, which misses opportunities to form artful stage pictures or draw the audience more keenly into key scenes.
Director Feehely is right: Our Town is still, and will always be, worthwhile. Furthermore, his staging often manages to convey the basics of the play's critical thrust. As the curtain rings down on this casually pitched effort, we know we've experienced a great piece of writing. What is less clear is whether Feehely's laid-back approach doesn't risk undercutting Wilder's sense of devastating seriousness.
To be sure, ABE finds new angles on the message of an old war-horse. But in this case, some theatergoers might be inclined to wonder if the messenger didn't get a little lost along the way.
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