IF YOU GO* What: Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.”* When: Opens at 8 p.m. today (Shows at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays and 7 p.m. Thursdays through Feb. 21.)* Where: Chattanooga Theatre Centre, 400 River St.* Admission: $12-$25.* Phone: 267-8534.* Web site: www.theatrecentre.com.
This play is called “Our Town” …
The name of the town is Grovers Corners, New Hampshire … the date is May 7, 1901 …
So begins Thornton Wilder’s first Pulitzer Prize-winning work (he also won for “The Skin of Our Teeth” in 1943), so named because, well, it could be our town — yours, mine, your mother’s, anyone’s really.
A perennial classic, “Our Town” is timeless. However director Bob Willie said although the work is often read or seen, “for many, the message of the play has been long forgotten.”
The message, he said, is to not waste time.
“Enjoy all of its nuances and beauty. Find the meaning and pleasures of all the simple day-to-day things.”
Simple is key to “Our Town;” the traditonal staging was specified in the script.
Traditional, in this case, means minimalist sets, props and costumes.
“(Wilder) felt that minimalizing the props, costumes and sets brought the audience more into the production,” said Willie, “making them be able to invest in that reality.”
The play, however, doesn’t purport to be real life. “Our Town” indeed begins: “The name of the play is …” It’s a story being told. The realism lies in the characters.
As the stage manager, Rob Inman plays “an omnipotent character,” said Willie. The role is both that of narrator and storyteller, but the actor also takes on the mantle of several characters in the play, including in what is probably “Our Town’s” most iconic scene.
“The scene known throughout the world is the soda-shop scene between Emily and George when they first come to the conclusion that they need to be together throughout their lives.”
The central role of Emily Webb (Joanna Miller), he said, is the most challenging.
“She has to keep on her growth through the play,” Willie said of the character, who ages from a teenage girl to a wife and mother in the course of three acts.
Written in 1937, during the later throes of the Great Depression and the early rumblings of the onslaught of World War II, it was a time of fear and unrest for everyone in our country,” said Willie, “and this work is timeless and extremely meaningful today. It really captures the universal experience of being alive.”
He said “Our Town” is a reminder of the importance of life’s simpler joys in a time that can be, well, straining.
“The strain’s so bad,” Wilder wrote, “that every sixteen hours, everybody lies down and gets a rest.
Eleven o’clock in Grovers Corners. You get a good rest too.”