Our Town
Launches TWS Pearl Jubilee

The Western Stage launches its 30^th Anniversary Season May 14 with Thornton Wilder’s beloved American classic Our Town, playing through June 6 in the Studio Theater, Hartnell College Performing Arts Center, Salinas. Season subscriptions are still the best bargain for as little as $12 a ticket. Go to WesternStage.com for complete information or call (831)-755-6816. Our Town plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm, Sundays at 2:00. (69 word calendar listing/PSA)

The Western Stage begins its 30^th Anniversary Pearl Jubilee Season on May 14^th with Thornton Wilder’s beloved American classic Our Town. Set in the fictitious community of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire at the turn of the 20^th Century, the play follows the lives of two average American kids, George Gibbs and Emily Webb, as they court, marry and face the inevitable when Emily unexpectedly dies giving birth. It is a play that embraces the most common elements of this rural New England town and transforms them into a poetic drama that reveals the universal—one could even say archetypical—human journey.

Wilder created this sense of universality in Our Town using a theatricality inspired by his avant-garde contemporaries in Europe. Most of the popular theatre during the early 20^th Century, in Europe as well as America, strived to recreate reality on the stage with sets that mirrored every day life and dramas that attempted to mimic the speech and behavior of common man. Yet, there were a growing number of dramatists who felt that this pursuit of authenticity in the theatre produced neither the truth nor realism it aimed at. After attending the premiere of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author in Italy, and watching the work of other avant-garde theatre artists in France, Wilder embraced this sentiment, and set about creating a drama that, like Pirandello’s, would highlight the issues of the story by rejecting realism and embracing the play’s inherent theatricality. (See supplemental article for more on Wilder’s influences.)

Wilder calls for Grover’s Corners to be created by suggestion and pantomime on a bare stage. “The scorn of verisimilitude,” writes Wilder in his notes to the director of Our Town,” throws all the greater emphasis on the ideas which the play hopes to offer.” Aiding Wilder in this project is an ever present “stage manager”—an inspiration from Pirandello—who acts as a narrator, homespun oracle, and soda jerk throughout the story. He helps Wilder weave a story that uses the mundane particulars of everyday life—seemingly trivial matters such as the feeding of chickens and the town’s census report—to create a vivid picture of small town life in New England. This revolutionary juxtaposition of the stark and the particular allowed Wilder to show that beyond the mundane details of every day life there exists a universal truth that speaks to and affects all humanity. Our Town is not just a story about a single, rural community in New England; it is a story about every town.

There could be no greater testimony to the success of Wilder’s project than last year’s award winning documentary OT: Our Town. The film follows Catherine Borek and her English class at Dominguez High School in Compton, California as they stage the first play at the high school in 20 years.—and they choose to do Our Town. It is not only a film that depicts the power of the arts on the lives of children, but also shows the power of this play to cross ethnic, cultural, and geographical divides, thereby proving its own premise.

Lorenzo Aragon (Man of La Mancha 2002, Rain of Gold 2003) returns to TWS to direct Our Town and, appropriately enough, begin work on the Salinas Stories project. (See 30th Anniversary Article.) Veteran TWS stage manager and director Linda Hancock is also on board as assistant director. Design team includes Lynne Willis, sets, and Jim Hultquist, lighting. Costume, Makeup & Hair Design by Rhonda Kirkpatrick-Griffith; Sound Design by Tony Tissot; Musical Coordination by Andy Gilhooley and Stage Management by Zalissa Ré Crane.

The Western Stage’s Pearl Jubilee Season continues with The Cripple of Inishmaan in June and Hello, Dolly! in July. Also mark your calendars for All My Sons, Sweeney Todd, Tartuffe, and Into the Woods later this year.

Dan Tarker, Literary Associate