BRATTLEBORO-On Friday and Saturday, Oct. 18 and 19, the Brattleboro Union High School Players will present their production of Our Town by Thornton Wilder, a script that playwright Edward Albee called "probably the finest American play ever written so far."
First produced in 1938, the play has provided thought-provoking entertainment for audiences ever since. Wilder's dramatic innovations, considered radical at the time, included no props and a minimal set (some chairs, a couple of tables); and a non-linear plot. Its characters break the fourth wall, addressing the audience directly - especially the Stage Manager, who not only participates in the action on stage, but also offers commentary and insights along the way. The minimalist approach calls upon the audience to use their imaginations.
"I've been familiar with Our Town since I read it in high school," said Rebekah Kersten, director and BUHS teacher of English and theater, who added it to the curriculum for acting class last year.
"I wanted to give students a chance to really focus on their character's physicality by having them choose a duet scene from the show, in which they then played both parts by themselves," Kersten said. "As we were working with the play in class, students commented on how much they loved it, and many of them began lobbying me to choose this as the 2024 fall play."
As the play opens, the Stage Manager introduces the ordinary citizens of the fictional ordinary small town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, where it is 1901.
The Gibbs and Webb families live next door to each other.
Dr. Frank Gibbs, played by Bramblestar Sage, is the town doctor.
"He's extremely tired all the time," Sage said. "He's just delivered a pair of twins in the middle of the night. His wife begs him to go to sleep. He doesn't take care of himself."
Mrs. Julia Gibbs is portrayed by Kaitlyn Blouin, who says the character cares very much about her two children, George (Griffin Woodruff) and his younger sister Rebecca (Melia Rose, who says it's fun to annoy George).
"She's made a lot of sacrifices and has regrets," Blouin said. "She wishes she understood more about the world. She's always wanted to see Paris. She married young and didn't know her husband - they met on their wedding day."
Mr. Charles Webb (Dashiell Moyse) is publisher and editor of the town's newspaper, The Sentinel.
"He's a very important figure to his daughter Emily," Moyse said. "He's an upstanding citizen who can be snarky and sarcastic, but he's sincere. He's able to laugh at life - that's why he's interesting to me. I feel a connection. This play is 86 years old, but it still holds cultural relevance and is still worth being seen."
Mrs. Myrtle Webb, portrayed by Rei Carpenter-Ranquist, is the mother of Emily and her younger brother Wally.
"She's very strict but clearly very loving," Carpenter-Ranquist said. "She and her husband banter a lot, very playful. Her Act II monologue is very emotional."
Anika Wiltermuth portrays Emily Webb, who in Act I is a 16-year-old high school student. Her life events become the focus of the play.
"I like to think of Emily as a little snooty," Wiltermuth said. "She's super smart, and she knows she is. She wants to be pretty. She wants everything to be perfect. Because I'm in high school, too, it's easy to relate to her problems. There is lots of subtext."
Text and subtext
"The cast and I have spoken extensively about subtext - what the lines mean under the surface, and why that's the case," Kersten said. "So much of this play is driven by the subtext in each scene and the relationships between the characters."
The play, she said, "takes place in a time when people didn't necessarily think it proper to discuss certain topics out loud in a straightforward way, and so they had to convey their thoughts less through their words and more through their actions and tone of voice."
Leo Mousseau, a senior, plays the Stage Manager, whom he describes as "the facilitator, the narrator, the caretaker of the story."
"I go out into the audience and sit with them," Mousseau said. "I talk about how this play is a time capsule, and we're all witnesses to the story together."
Mousseau said he and Kersten have had extensive discussions of what it means to be the Stage Manager.
"We've come to an interpretation of the character as a gardener," Mousseau said. "My job is to keep the story growing and nourished. Each of the three acts is a season.
"In the first act, I wear a white shirt, overalls, and work boots. I have soil on my hands. It's spring, and I'm taking a tour of what I've planted.
"In the second act, things are growing and being harvested. It's joyful. People are getting married. My garden has yielded crops.
"The third act is solemn. I'm turning the soil and putting the garden to bed, in anticipation for the cycle to repeat."
In acting class last year, Mousseau said, when the group studied the Our Town script, he "read the part of the Stage Manager and fell in love with it."
Logan Wendel, a senior, has three roles: belligerent man in the audience; Joe Stoddard, the town undertaker; and Constable Bill Warren, the town policeman.
"Constable Warren is the role I really wanted," Wendel said. "When we studied the play in acting class, I was assigned that part. I decided I should make him British, and it clicked. It worked so well. When I learned this was the fall play, I asked if I got the constable part, [and whether I could] keep the accent, and I did."
This is Wendel's first high-school-level production. He took acting class last semester, "just 'cause, and I had a ton of fun," he said.
"Acting allows me to put myself out there without feeling it's me," he said. "It allows me to put on a character and make people believe I am that character. It's that sense of immersion."
Dominic Johnson, also a senior, plays Simon Stimson, the church organist.
"He's a very angry drunk," Johnson said. "He hates everybody and everything. As Stimson, I get to yell at God in His own church. Stimson is the black sheep in this play, and people talk about him behind his back."
Jason Donahue also plays several parts: Howie Newsome, the town's milkman; Sam Craig, who returns to Grover's Corners after being away for 12 years; and a member of the church choir.
Ava Einig plays a lady in the audience who asks two questions of Mr. Webb. She is also a member of the church choir, and one of the nameless dead in Act III.
"One of the dead is talking about a son who knew all the stars by name," Einig said, "and how it takes millions of years for the starlight to reach Earth, and how a star is very good company." Two stage managers assist the director.
"We are responsible for blocking [the positions of the actors on stage] and for keeping track of the actors' lines," Hana Risner said. "We also give them suggestions, which are only to guide them."
"I moved here from New Mexico a few months ago and wanted to get back to stage managing," said Aviana Wiltermuth, older sister to Anika. "We take notes on blocking and on how a character should respond. It's a lot of fun."
A 'simple, homelike beauty'
Kersten said this play has a simple, homelike beauty that makes it the perfect antidote to the stress and chaos of the post-Covid 21st century.
"Life is precious, and we sometimes get so caught up in the on-demand society we've created that we forget what it means to truly be alive," she said. "Thornton Wilder's straightforward, spare, yet soothing script reminds us to treasure what we have, to pay attention, to be in the moment with those we love before those moments are gone.
"This cast has come together so well as a tight-knit group that takes good care of each other. We're excited to share our work with the community."
Performances will take place at the BUHS auditorium, 131 Fairground Road, Brattleboro, on Friday, Oct. 18, at 7 p.m. and on Saturday, Oct. 19, at 2 and 7 p.m. General admission tickets are $10 at the door.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.