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The School Newspaper of Harriton High School

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The School Newspaper of Harriton High School

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“My” Town: A Review

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(Emma Butler/Harriton Banner)

Our Town is a Pulitzer winning play written by Thornton Wilder in 1938. It is a play performed with not set, no props, just actors. As such it is an extraordinarily sophisticated play for even the most accomplished performer to put on for it requires the actors to stand naked before the audience, armed only with their craft. On January 7, 8, and 9th, the Harriton Theater Company performed Our Town in the new Black Box theater
While I cannot contribute anything from the perspective of an audience member, I can express the courage of the cast of Our Town for daring to bare themselves as performers in such an explicit and open way, without the comfort of props or scenery to help them carry the performance. As a fellow cast member, I can only express my congratulations at the success and valiance of their efforts.
Our Town is takes place in a small New Hampshire town, Grover’s Corners, at the turn of the 20th century. The audience is literally led through the experience of the play by a narrator, who both participates in events, interacting with the actors, but also acknowledges the existence of the audience by talking directly to them, explaining each scene and even answering questions. This artifact allows the play to use selective moments as devices to support the play’s theme, which is built around the passage of time.

The play is split into three acts: the first act introduces the characters and the spirit of this small nondescript town. The stage is set to demonstrate the regularity and consistency, the almost blandness of the town. The second act moves us closer to two of the characters, a neighboring boy and girl who fall in love and get married.  Yet even this event is not specific to these individuals, rather their experience is just a zoomed in metaphor for the cycle of life that occurs in Grover’s Corners. Everyone in this town “marches to the grave in pairs.”

The first two acts lull the audince into a gentle sense of complacency, almost boredom with the routine and simple world of Grover’s Corners. But in the third act Thornton Wilder drives home his point and everything changes. The third act opens in a graveyard with many of the key characters now dead. A funeral is about to occur, that of the young bride from Act II, Emily Gibb (played by Emily Featherman). After attempting to return the world of living to relive just one day, despite the warnings of her fellow dead, she returns and she soon discovers that one cannot go backwards when one has knowledge of the future.  Such knowledge cannot be transmitted, cannot be used to change was has been and so it becomes only a horrific burden, creating a painful awareness of how the living cannot appreciate the very pleasure of life.  It is with that realization that Emily illuminates the fragile message of the play. Ms. Featherman’s heartfelt and tragic monologue ends with the simple question “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every, every minute?” The simple response she receives from the omnipotent and casual narrator (portrayed by James Butler) is “No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe they do some.” It is at that moment that the stillness and the heartbreak in theater can be felt even in the concrete black box closet where the rest of cast is anticipating the end of the show.
Aside from Ms. Featherman and Mr. Butler’s performances there were a number of other charming and memorable portrayals. Matt Glick and Stephen Kline (no, not our principal) played the fathers of the household at the center of the play and each brought their own unique interpretation of manly strength and wisdom as the pillars of each family. I had the privilege of playing the Mrs. Webb opposite both those men while Jessi Silverman as the other mother figure Mrs.Gibbs, gave a sweet and tender depiction of a mother simply trying to get her children to school in the morning. Ms. Kasie Patlove was the memorable and talkative Mrs. Soames and Brian Kluger made a wonderful cameo as the historian of the town, as well as playing a very somber funeral bearer. Peter Marshall made his usual appearance as a member of the armed forces with somber charm and military bearing.  Alex Cooper pulled on the heartstrings of the audience as the simple and loving George Gibbs, the male protagonist of the show. Max Pavel, in his first HTC performance, gave an unbelievably detailed and subtly intricate performance as the town choir director and town drunk. As for myself, well, I simply did what I always do.
The meaning of this show carries plenty of weight on it’s own but it resonates particularly with me as Our Town was my last show with the Harriton Theater Company. Since I was a freshman, I have been part of HTC’s shows.  While I admire the caliber of Wilder’s work, I’m afraid he and I have a very different perspective on life. I don’t look back on my life or time with HTC and wish I had done more or appreciated it more while I was there. I look back at my memories with the company and fondly recount the happiness and love and friendship I found on that stage. My four years with them have inspired me as an actor and as a person, and for everything they’ve given me, I can never thank them enough.  So it was the fondest of partings I offer my review, my congratulations and my fond farewell on a job well done.

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