The GhostLight Theatre in Benton Harbor recently concluded its production of “Our Town.” Gordon Bolar has this review.
“The Greatest American Play Ever Written.” That’s what playwright Edward Albee had to say about Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Those are tall words, and a tall order to fill for any theatre staging Our Town.
Those who attended The GhostLight Theatre’s showing had the opportunity to see why Wilder’s script, written in 1938, is considered one of the most profound, relevant, and accessible perspectives on human life ever presented on the stage.
Director Ashley Coia’s stark, beautiful, and seemingly effortless production relies on simplicity and economy to connect its audience with Wilder’s masterwork. After all, Our Town is a play about just that: human connection, in all its forms.
The story centers on the daily lives of two neighboring families, the Webbs and Gibbs, in a fictional small town, Grovers Corners, New Hampshire around 1901.
What sets the unremarkable lives of these families apart is the way their stories are presented.
Pete Thomasson, as the Stage Manager, addresses the audience as he introduces the play, and the town itself, with objective data. He is assisted by humorous testimony from absent-minded professor, Bud Shuler, regarding the anthropological and geological history of the local environs.
Thomasson’s gift, as Stage Manager, is his ability to preside over the subtle shifts in tone built into the narrative voice of Wilder’s play.
At first glance, Thomasson’s character seems cordial, welcoming, and friendly. His folksy manner is laced with a lilting Granite State accent. His dispassionate delivery can reveal one who reluctantly bears the knowledge about the past, present, and future of each character he introduces. We sense that he is somehow aware of the fate of those he surveys.
The omniscient and possibly divine nature of Thomassen’s Stage Manager becomes apparent as he guides us through the story by moving back and forth in time, and place.
Thomasson is at home in providing the larger perspective, with his references to the stars above us, nature around us, and the eternal qualities of the human soul. In doing so, he never allows his character to become heavy handed or preachy. Any lessons for the viewer will be based on observations of the lives of those who populate Grovers Corners.
This isn’t to say that town residents are devoid of emotion. It implies that both the blessing and curse of this Stage Manager is his inability to intervene. The dynamics of this push-pull relationship result in an odd form of audience empathy. The more the narrator figuratively stands apart from characters, despite literal close proximity, the more the viewer is drawn to them.
Coia’s fluid staging is in keeping with Wilder’s script and underscores an understated approach to telling the story. The minimalist style of Japanese Noh and Kabuki theatre is seen in the use of two wooden ladders, representing second story bedroom perches of mooning teenagers.
The nearly bare stage set is rounded out only by a dining table, with chairs. This centerpiece is shared by the Gibbs and the Webbs simultaneously in a breakfast scene. Around the table, family members quickly eat and hastily exit to work or school. In front of the table, town folk walk by at a brisk pace, establishing characters with a simple gesture or a phrase.
Although the precious fleeting moments of daily life are merely sketched, they seem etched forever in our memory. As we see later, that’s the entire point of Wilder’s play.
Without props, actors mime daily activities such as cooking, eating, and delivering newspapers. Each of these actions is delivered with physical precision and clarity.
Rebecca Maxey’s genial but nosey Mrs. Gibbs, and Carol Sizer’s eye-rolling Mrs. Webb, bond over harmless gossip punctuated by the rhythm of stringing beans, as they sit on the front porch.
Their respective offspring, George Gibbs, played by Giovanni Wubbena, and Haley Crowley, as Emily Webb, sip imaginary sodas at the drug store. In this scene, a prototype for teenage meet-cutes, Wubbena and Crowley build rapport between sips and a relationship out of awkward pauses, missteps, and nonverbal cues born from the rush of feelings accompanying first love.
A key to believability here is that both performers exist on the same wavelength and are fully committed to listening and immediately responding to each other’s mercurial emotions.
This production is full of other crisp, well-timed duo scenes such as those between Wubbena and his wise and easy-going father, played by Michael Bond. Bond gently shames his son with a few well-chosen words.
Other characters round out the Grovers Corners community with well-executed portraitures, including a loquacious and lachrymose wedding guest played by Kristen Wielenga, and the bitter, isolated, and frequently inebriated church organist, played by Travis Braxton Paul.
Prior to their wedding, the actors playing Emily and George hold both love and fear in their character’s hearts for their respective future partners and their impending transformation. Holding both of these opposing emotions at once is an admirable achievement for any performer.
The dichotomy of emotions within this young couple is a fitting representation of the contrasts contained in Coia’s production and Wilder’s play at the GhostLight Theatre. This includes the unsympathetic ticking of the clock that hints at life’s transitory nature, beside the hereafter that hopefully awaits town residents. It also encompasses a bare stage that can depict the daily struggles of ordinary people in a small town, as well as the vastness of the universe that surrounds them.