Welcome Backto Grover's Corners

'Our Town' never left the stage,but this season's productions are finding

sharp new anglesBY LORI ANN LASTER

AMERICAN MAY/JUNE

ike many Americans, I first encountered Thornton Wilder's Our Town during my pre-teens. I was crammed into a middle schoolauditorium with a couple of hundred annoyed eighth graders to watch the great American classic be performed by fellow stu-dents—iiicliidin£r my younger sister Amy in the role of Rcbecai. Dressed in a blue gingham dress, in pigtails, gazing up at thecnnstruc'tion-paper moon, bristling with excitation and nervousness, she called out, voice cracking: "Jane Oofut; The Crofut

Farm; Grover's Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America.. ..Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere;theKarth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God^that's what it said on the envelope." I immediately turned to the kid next to meand whispered, "What the hell does that mean?"

1 wore dark eye makeup and had a penchant for rebellion. Myresponse to Wilder's "life of a village against the life of the stars"was to instantly dismiss it as ¡ust a sepia-toned postcard from aninsignifieant turn-of-the-eentury New îlampshire town^a dullportrait of laconic Yankees coming of age, falling in love, gettingmarried and dying. I'ccnagc courtship over ice-cream sodas and theprovincial delight of the smell ot heliotrope in the moonlight was alittle too saccharine for my tastes, despite the intrigue of a magicalStage Manager who seemed to have the limits of time and space at hisfingertips. A decade later, in college, I grimaced when I saw the playon the syllahus of my required Fnglish class. But when I picked upOur 'low» and read it beneath the Ilickering light of my dorm room,I was shocked. Was this bold, unflinchingly philosophical, intricatelook at the human condition even the same play?

This season, IVt talked to artists at a diverse group of six theatresacross the country that are all producing Our Town—and, by virtue of•A range of innovative approaches and interpretive twists, refusing tnlet audiences dismiss it as a nostalgic hymn to small-town life. Thispast fall the play ran eoncurrently at Two River Theater Companyin Red Bank, NJ., helmed by artistic director Aaron Posner; IndianaRepertory Theatre in Indianapolis, directed by Peter Amster; andConnecticut's Hartford Stage, directed by Gregory Boyd. Threemore productions follow this spring and summer: The Hypocrites ofChicago mounts the play through June 8, directed by David Cromer;it opens at Pbiladelphia's Arden Theatre Company May 22, overseenby artistic director TerrenceJ. Nolan; and Chay Yew directs the playat Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ash land J une 4-Oct. II.

"We're in the dawn of this play's golden age," believes TappanWilder, the playwright's literary executor and nephew, as he watchesgrowing numbers of professional theatres rediscover the complexity

According to Tappan Wilder,it's widely believed thatOur Town is performed

"at least once each nightsomewhere in this country."

From left, Wynn Harmon, Joe Binder, Stephen D'Ambrose

and Erin Weaver in Our Town, directed by Aaron Posner,

at Two River Theater Company in Red Bank, N.J.

OÎ Our Tn-wmná the genius of its author. "Observers are finally dis-covering that, like an iceberg, two thirds of Thornton Wilder is underwater" Indeed, Wilder is the only writer to win a Pulitzer Prize bothfor drama (twiee, for Our 7oïiin and The Skin of Our Teeth) ana fiction(The Bridge of San Luis Rey), and his influence on acclaimed ilramatistswho came later—Lanford Wilson, John Guare and Romulus Linney,for starters—is profound. Yet, it's not uncommon for the play to bedisregarded as a dusty, sentimental classic and its scribe dismissedasa bathetic idealist,

When Our Town was first staged at the MeCarter Theatre inPrinceton, NJ., in January 1938, in an otherwise negative review,l-'iiricry remarked, "It probably represents an all-time high in experi-mental theatre." When it moved to Henry Miller's Theatre in NewYork a month later, Brooks Atkinson wrote in the Neiv York Times.,"Our Town has escaped from the formal barrier of modern theatre....Under the leisurely monotone of the production there is a fragmentof the iniinortal truth."

A bare stage, no props, the use of mime, breaking the fourthwall, dismantling the unities of time and place—these were radicallyinnovative devices that astounded audiences at a time when kitchen-sink realism dominated the serious stage, and boulevard comedies andmelodrama proliferated. Influenced by his Pluropean counterparts andthe techniques of Shakespeare and the Greeks, Wilder was eager toabandon the box sets and realistic props that were ubiquitous on thepost-World War I American stage. "I began to feel tbat the theatrewas not only inadequate," wrote Wilder, "it was evasive; it did not wishto draw upon its deeper potentialities.... It aimed to be soothing," Itwas by removing the diversion of realistic clutter and tapping intothe imagination of audiences that Wilder strove to make what wasonstage reilectthe verities of life: "Our claim, our hope, our despairare in the mind—not in things, not in seenery."

Oitr Town was the vehicle Wilder used to not only eliminate theobtrusive bric-a-brac of scenery and props but to synthesize life toits barest elements: WliHe projecting the façade of the specific—thequotidian lives of two young New Englanders, F.niily and George,and their Grover's Corners neighbors—Oz/r Town uses its deceptivelystandard three-act structure to reflect the universal cycle of life. Inthe first act, "The Daily Life," adolescent F.niily and George getschooled and grow up. The second act is "Love and Marriage," inwhich the two fall in love and are happily wed. Act 3—"I reckon youcan guess what that's about," muses the Stage Manager, the play'somnipresent guide, as the inevitability of death (and speculationsalwiut its metaphysical consequences) move to the fore. By constructingthe play in this symbolic manner. Wilder was able to transcend theboundaries of the play's specific world to give his audience a glimpseof the universal and eternal.

So how did such a pioneering and revolutionary work fade intopicturesque Americana, reminiscent ot Norman Rockwell? In someways, the play is a victim of its own success. After its startling Broatlway

MAY/JUNEOP AMERICANTHEATRE !•

premiere, Oin- Toii'n took on the pntiiia of a beloved American classic,and when it became available for production in 1939, with its large castand low budgetary demands, it exploded onto the amateur stage—theplay was reportedly performed in more than 795 cotTiniunities in lessthan a year. The show has also had a healthy life on the professionalstage, enjoying regular revivals both on Broadway and at high-priifileregional theatres—most recently at Connecticut's Westport CountryPlayhi)use In 2002, featuring superstar Paul Newman, and LincolnCenter Theater in 1988-89 in a Tony-winning production with actorand raconteur Spalding Gray. There are several film and TV versions(the first of which was produced by Sol Lesser just two years after theplay's premiere), and it has been transformed, under the same name,into such genres as opera, with music by Ned Rorem and libretto byJ.D. McClatchy; ballet, by noted choreographer Philip Jerry; anda musical for television, with Frank Sinatra. According to TappanWilder, it's widely believed that Our Tiwn is performed "at least onceeach night somewhere iti this country."

BECAUSE OF THIS, MANY OF THE ARTISTIC DIRECTORSI talked to weren't surprised that the inclusion oiOtir Town in theirschedules was met with rolling eyes, accusations of playing it safe, andthe ever-popular objection, "I saw it in high school." "People thinkthey know the play, but they just don't," contends director Boyd, who,like his colleagues who are revisiting the play this season, is dedicatedto dispelling misgivings ahout its relevance and acknowledging thenuances of its prismatic depth. Each ofthe six productions is, in fact,offering new angles of insight into this familiar script.

That was certainly the case in Indianapolis, where IRT guestdirector Amster delivered an enlightening exegesis ofthe play bystaging the first act in the framework of a rehearsal for the original1̂ 38 production. Resurrecting Our Town's hare stage, with footlightsdown front and radiators lining tbe back wall, Amster's productionbegan with the cast playing actors of the 1930s, dressed to performas Grover's Corners characters and sitting at a large rehearsal tahle

The company of Indiana Repertory Theatre's Our Town, directed by Peter Amster.

with scripts in hands, while the Stage Manager commented on thetopography of the town and the background of its inhabitants—which,in the context ofthe rehearsal framework, took on new tneaning asdramaturgical source material.

Amster craftily molded moments throughout Act 1 that solidi-fied the rehearsal concept. When Mr. Webb (boisterously played byCharles Goad) arrived late to give his sociopolitical report on Grover'sCorners, a wigless Mrs. Webb (Manon Halliburton) ran on stageattempting to cover for her tardy cn-actor. "He'll lie here in a minute,"she stammered, "he just cut his hand while he was eatin' an apple."This actual line of dialogue, usually uttered as a literal explanation,here became a clumsy comic excuse—revealed a second later when atoilet flushed offstage and the disheveled actor rushed on. At the endofthe 6rst act, tbe Stage Manager (Robert Elliott) abruptly stoppedaddressing the aetors and turned his attention directly to the audiencefor the first time, describing how Our Town was going to be includedin 3 time capsule. By breaking the fourth wall here rather than at thebeginning ofthe play Amster ignited the profundity of Wilder's textand made the trope of direct address powerful and immediate. Forthe restof the evening, the audience listened to the Stage Manager'swords with new ears.

The rehearsal idiom honored Onr Town's Brechtian facets andWililer's aversion to realism. The |)ulling away ot a layer of tabrica-tion from the theatrical act reinforced the audience's awareness thatit was seeing a play, a symbolic representation of life, not life itself,and helped to crystallize Wilder's allegorical microcosm ot humanexistence. As a whole, Amster's approach compelled audiences forwhom the play lay cobwebbed in memory to greet it as an entirelydifferent entity. ".Audiences come with a certain nostalgia, but theyalso come with a certain condescension," says Amster. "I wanted tosee if 1 could find a way to make tbat empty space new again."

Two River Theater Company's Posner also strove to make audi-ences "hear it fresh," His production featured bunraku-style puppetsin the roles ofthe supporting townspeople and a thirtysomething

AMERICANTHrATPF MAY/JUNE"«

, diiected by Greijory Boyd dt Hartford Stage in Connecticut.

Stage Manager, played by Doug Hará—whom Posner describes asneither "iinri-Stage Manager" (as he fhanicterizes the late SpaldingCiray's performance) nor the "Mr. Peppcridge Farm" characterizationthat has sometimes diluted the Impact of the role.

A dynamic seven-inemlwr cast worked as an ensemble to bring thevillagers to life through puppetry. Professor Willard, tor example—about three feet tall with a puff of wild white hair, wearing spectacles,a pinstriped vest and bow tie—was agilely manipulated by joe Binder(who played Cieorge), while actor Stephen D'Ambrose (who doubledas Dr. Gibbs) gave him the idiosyncratic voice of a pedantic manenthused to hear his own thoughts out loud. Masterfully designedIty Aaron Oomie, each puppet had distinct features that animated itscharacter's personality. Posner was able to use this ancient art formto serve VVilder's modern gctal of freeing tbe stage from the shacklesof realism and to give the production, in Posner's words, "a level oft lieatricality that breaks it open so that people can invest it with theirown imaginations." He adds that, after the performance, audience

"There is something about theplay that is so inherently

American," reflects HartfordStage's Michael Wilson,

"that we want to cling to itbecause somehow we

feel like our innate goodnessis within it."

members would often insist they saw the puppets' mouths and facesmoving—"which, oi course, they never did."

The compelling imagery offered in the Two River productiondrew the eerie undertones of the play's final graveyard scene to thesurface, fully unveiling its pathos. Wooden hutches, representingtombstones, loomed in a corner of the thrust stage overgrown withgrass. A stone-faced Mrs. Gibbs (Maureen Sillinian) sat in front ofher tombstone, and in the foreground, Kmily (Krin Weaver) wasdressed in her pristine wedding gown. The puppets, now sprawledlifelessly in front of their tombstones or posed on the angled sides ofthe hutches, no longer walked and talked as Fmily does—with no oneanimating them, they were empty husks, corporeal symbols for thehopeful spirit that swiftly dwindles when one passes over to death.The use of puppetry gave this scene an uncanny resonance.

Our Town also presents a tailor-made opportunity for buildingstronger ties with a community. Now in his first season at Two River,Posner used the play as a way to literally shake the hand.s of his newneighbors. Before performances, actors in costume mingled withtbe audience. Actual audience members (instead of cast members)participated in the scene in which editor Webb takes questions fromthe audience after his sociopolitical report. Our Town also launchedTwo River's 732 Project (named for Red Bank's area code), a multiyearfolklore enterprise that will use interviews from members of the com-munity as source material for a living history of the region.

Hartford and IRT also amplified their productions with out-reach operations. Both had well-attended student matinees andoffered informational prologues and talkbacks, IRT initiated a newprogram of community readings and discussions in libraries, parksand community centers all over Indianapolis. "We really wanted toexplore the sense of ownership that people have of this play," saysIRT artistic director Janet Allen.

Both Oregon Shakespeare Festival artistic director Bill Rauchand the Arden's Nolan arc looking to physical settings for an invigo-rated Our Town. In Ashland, it will be the first 20th-century (or, for

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WELCOME BACK TO GROVER'S CORNERS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 27

that matter, American) play to be mountedon OSF's outdoor Elizabethan stage. "It's theright play to ptjsh the boundaries," Rauchsays, "because, like Shakespeare, Wilderput emphasis on the imaginative exchangebetween audience and the actors." Sittingoutdoors, amongst the rolling hills of theRouge Valley, audiences will have "a moreimmediate connection to Wilder's themesof human isolation and connection and thevastness of the universe," RaucK believes.

The official title of the Arden produc-tion is Our Town in Old City—a referenceto the historical section of Philadelphiamarked by narrow streets of cobblestone andhistorical monuments such as the Betsy Rosshouse. Act 1 will take place at the Arden'stheatre (which was once the grounds of BenFranklin's bookshop); for the second act,audiences will walk next door through thechurchyard (where Franklin is buried) intothe majesty of Christ Church, one of theoldest sanctuaries in America (and wherethe pew of George Washington is diligentlymarked). Our Town in Old City will interweave

Philadelphia's actual historical legacy withevents of the play, amplifying how its univer-sal themes tangibly apply to the communityin all its diversity.

The Arden production will featurethe largest cast that the theatre has everemployed, using the natural accents of theactors. "I'm eager to have a wide range ofour community represented on stage," saysNolan. Local musical groups will be incor-porated into each performance along withspecial local guests (newscasters, teachersand politicians). Governor Edward Rendellis an honorary producer.

The Hypocrites, a thriving non-EquityChicago company known for offering alterna-tive and sometimes explosive points of view,was still, as of press time, in the creativebrainstorming phase of production. Oneidea currently on the table, divulges artisticdirector Sean Graney, is that director Cromermay also take on the role of the ruminativeStage Manager. "Stripping away some of thepretension of the character," asserts Graney,"will endow the Stage Manager with a deeper

level of honesty."The desire to blow dust offthe play and

resuscitate its shocking impact has led tosome radical stagings in the past few years.A 2007 summer staging in Minneapolis byGirl Friday Productions eradicated the roleof the Stage Manager completely, ascribinghis prophetic words to various members ofthe cast. New York City's Transport Group,in 2002, cast a 12-ycar-old girl as the StageManager while young lovers George andEmily were played by actors in their sixties.Going further back, the Wooster Group'sfamous and controversial 1'Í81 deconstruc-tion of the play, titled Route 1 & 9, threwblackface and explicit sex into the mix.

By contrast, director Boyd's laudablebare-boned approach at Hartford Stageattempted to celebrate the original intentof the author by handling the text of the playwith reverence. "1 think there's a real purityin this production," the company's artisticdirector Michael Wilson says of the show,which ran last September and October. "Itis daring for it to be purely what Thornton

AnnouncingThe Yale Drama Series

2009 Competition

Yale University Press and Yale Repertory Theatre are seeking submissions for the Yale Drama Series. Thewinner of this annual competition will be awarded the David C. Horn Prize of $10.000. publication of his/hermanuscript by Yale University Press, and a staged reading at the Yale Rep. The winning play will be selectedby series judge Edward Albee.

Submissions for the 2009 competition must be postmarked no earlier than June 1, 2008. and no later thanAugust 15, 2008. There is no application form. Please note that the rules governing this year's competitionhave changed from those governing last year's competition.

• The competition is restricted to plays in the English language, though submissions areaccepted world wide.• Submissions must be original, unpublished full-length plays written in English — transla-tions, musicals, and children's plays are not accepted. The Yale Drama Series is intended tosupport emerging playwrights. Playwrights may win the competition only once.• Plays that have had professional productions are not eligible.• Playwrights may submit only one manuscript per year

Send your manuscript to: Yale Drama Series, P.O. Box 209040. New Haven. CT 06520-9040.For complete rules governing the Competition visit: www.yalebooks.coin/drama

y ¿\ I P U n i v e r s i t y Pr yalebooks.com

AMERICANTHEATRE MAY/JUNE08

C H A U T A U Q U A T H E A T E R

Wilder wanted, which was actors, audience,blank ,sragc and these words." More than any-thing, Boyd felt his job was scraping off thecoats of'"Baskin-Robbins, Norman Rockwelland Disney" that have been lacquered uponthe play over the years. His chief collabora-tor on the project was 82-year-old actinglegend Hal Holbrook, who has a historywith the play, having played rhe role oftheStage Manager twice before (at Connecticut'sLong Wharf Theatre in 1987 and 10 yearsearlier in NBC's televised version, whichearned him an Emmy nomination). AlthoughI lolbrooli liccame ill a couple of weeks intothe run, his contributions helped deliver anauthentic and austere Our Town, unscathedby easy emotion or grandiosity.

Boyd and I iolbrook were deeply in tunewith the play's occasionally dire melancholy."If you ignore what lies in the depths of thetext," the director emphasizes, "you betraythe play," He likens its contradictory lessonto the ancient Sanskrit text Mahahharata:"We all know we're going to die, yet we liveas if we're not." Holbrook's age and gravitasunderscored how much the play revolvesaround mortality and loss.

The darker elements of Owr Town wereoften lost during what Tappan Wilder callsthe "Leave It to Beaver" phase ofthe play'slife (from the 1950s through the m7Üs).which earned it an undeserved reputationfor sentimental shallowness—epitomizedl)y Sinatra singing "Love and Marriage" Inthe 1955 musical version.

BUT 'OUR TOWN' WAS WRITTEN ATa time when hope was actually a preciouscommodity. The threat of war was buildingin the far east while at home social unrestand discord prompted by the Great Depres-sion was still roiling, Dysphoric uneasiness,self-doubt and longing riddled the countryeven as Roosevelt's New Deal seemed topromise light at the end ofthe tunnel. OurTown is set in a more tranquil time before thewar—a time Wilder describes in his novelThe Eighth Day when "every man, womanand child believed he or she lived in the besttown in the best state in the best country inthe world. This conviction filled them witha certain strength." While summoning anidealistic time made the universal aspects of1 i fe more resonant and palpable, it also endedup serving a pressing sociological need: Ithelped satisfy members of the public's desire

MAY/JUNEOe AMERICANTHtATBE

for a simpler, more iconic America than theone they perceived around them.

Today's America can be said to be expe-riencing equally trying times: Since the tumofthe century a series of contentious electionshave called democracy itself into question,and Americans have endured the tragedyof 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan andIraq, Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath,the torture at Abu-Ghraib, the Patriot Act,serious threats to civil liberties and freespeech, questionable expansion of presidentialauthority and a polarizing split into "blueand red" states. So in today's discordantAmerica, do we not need again to be "filledwith a certain strength"?

A number of the artistic directors 1spoke to noted that the play's ability to pro-vide comfort in times of trouble was part ofthe appeal of producing it this season. Wiid-er's portrait of Cirover's Corners "reminds usofwhat is eternal and good in the Americanpsyche and captures that indomitable spiritof inquiry that even our polarized socialand political conditions cannot dampen ordeny," says the IRT's Janet Allen. "There issomething about the play that is so inherentlyAmerican," reflects Wilson, "that we wantto cling to it because somehow we feel likeour innate goodness is within it."

But it also yields insight into "who weare and what we mean by 'American' and'American values,'" says Posner. Wilder'sclassic both extols and deeply criticizes thesubstance of broadly accepted Americanculture by exploring the nation's issues withisolationism, xenophobia, gender stereotyp-ing and the tragic consequences of war. "Thetrick is not to offer the play as a remedy," saysAllen. "It suggests that nothing is whollygood or bad. It doesn't set forth any particularcourse of action." Rauch agrees: "In suchterrifying times, it is the play's search formeaning" that matters.

Many of these artists, like myself, firstmet the play in their formative years of middleor high school—and it was only as they grewolder that the play's meaning became clearerand its themes richer. "As they say with an\great art," notes Wilson, "OÏÎJ- Town doesn'ichange; it's us who change." ES

Lori Ann Laster is a 2007-08American Theatre Affiliated Writer,with support by a grant from theJerome Foundation.

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