Belle Flint (left) as the stage manager, and Ben Neville as Mr. Webb. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
From Friday, Nov. 7, through Sunday, Nov. 9, the Bromfield Drama Society will present its first production of the year, Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” in the Cronin Auditorium.
“Our Town” is set in a classic turn-of-the-20th century American town and is told by the Gibbs and Webb families of fictitious Grovers Corner, New Hampshire, believed to be modeled after the town of Peterborough. Bromfield theater educator George Kendall said, “Wilder wanted to use a so-called ‘meta-theater’ panache in which to direct the play, which uses minimal props and staging and says to an audience, ‘This is theater portraying theater.’”
“Our Town” debuted at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, in January 1938. Critics said that it was generally boring and mundane; Variety called it “disappointing … hopelessly slow.”
According to an article titled “Our Town: A History” on the WGBH website, Jed Harris directed the play when it opened one month later in New York, and it received a much warmer response. There have been several Broadway revivals since then, and it was even turned into a movie in the 1940s. In 1955, “Our Town” was produced as a musical for television, starring Paul Newman as George, Eva Marie Saint as Emily, and Frank Sinatra as the stage manager.
The play portrays the simple life of two families in a small town, how love blossoms between its two lead characters, and how death takes one away. Director Kendall says that the message behind the plot is what made it a classic: “The simple moments we experience each day with those we love are our most important.”
Belle Flint, who plays the stage manager in Bromfield’s rendition, thinks “the play has a very unique perspective … It’s neat to be able to watch a girl’s life from the time that she is 16 until her death at 27,” she says.
Kendall’s ‘Our Town’
George Kendall spent almost 20 years in university administration and high tech consulting management before he began teaching 13 years ago. This is Kendall’s third year teaching theater arts and English literature at Bromfield, and “Our Town” will be the seventh play that he has directed at the school. He has also overseen two additional plays directed by high school students during his tenure.
Tommy Donahue (left) as Howie Newsham, and Caoilin O’Connor as Dr. Gibbs.
Kendall says the theater department’s plays are chosen using a number of different criteria. First, it is important to do something stylistically different from what’s been done recently, he says. This exposes students to a variety of theatrical genres, which helps them develop their artistry to a greater degree. Also, if one play has the male part as the lead role, next time he will try to pick a play with a female lead to give all his players a chance to shine. Another thing he has to keep in mind, he says, is the work that the technical team has to do, not just for high school productions, but also for middle school plays.
For the upcoming performance of “Our Town,” the production crew will be using lights that were acquired for last spring’s outdoor production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” The new lights are state-of-the-art LED fixtures, and this is the first time they’ll be used for an indoor show. Previously, Kendall had to supplement the older lighting fixtures with items from his personal collection of theater gear, so the theater department and students are grateful to have received a donation from the Harvard Schools Trust to buy new ones. “These lights bring us out of the 1980s,” Kendall says jokingly.
Sitting in the theater for a rehearsal, Kendall said that the technical theater kids are just beginning to really get to know the lighting system and are learning a lot from working with it.
In speaking of his play, according to the WGBH website, Wilder said, “Our claim, our hope, our despair are in the mind—not in things, not in ‘scenery’… Moliere said that for the theater all he needed was a platform and a passion or two. The climax of this play needs only five square feet of boarding and the passion to know what life means to us.”
This quote perfectly explains the scene in Bromfield’s Cronin Auditorium, where the bare minimalism of the set is historically accurate and reconstructed here for Kendall’s version of “Our Town.”
Emma Delaney, who plays Mrs. Gibbs, says, “This play is different from other plays because it literally reflects life in Harvard and other small towns around Harvard. The play is really similar to our daily life already.”
Students in Bromfield’s stage technology, design, and production classes built the set and many of the props, as well as the platform stage, which was first constructed for the school’s outdoor spring productions of Shakespeare. Other props are borrowed or purchased, as are the costumes.
In Bromfield’s production, Belle Flint plays the stage manager; young George Gibbs is played by Laughlin Hentz; and Emily Webb is played by Rachel Makosky.
The performance
The play begins with the curtain open, exposing a backstage view of the theater meant to say to the crowd, “This is theater.” The narrator enters to set the scene as the curtain closes. Outside the curtain are two ladders, one on each side of the stage, with two tables in between that serve as the only props in this act. Then the narrator introduces the town.
Act 1: Daily life
The year is 1901, and it is just before dawn. As daylight begins to appear, the narrator, whose role is interactive, sets the scene for the small simple town, and we meet the characters. With minimal props, lighting and special effect sounds help to cue performers, set the scene, and allow imaginative stimulation.
We see the lead characters sitting down in their kitchens having breakfast as a family before the children all head off to school. Then the women of the houses meet to chat, and Act 1 ends with the children helping each other with their homework and the mothers returning home from an animated choir practice.
Act II: Love and marriage
It is now three years later, July 7, 1904, to be exact. Just before the high school commencement, there is a rainstorm before dawn, and the characters begin to enter their kitchens for breakfast again. The woes of marriage and family life are displayed during conversations at the kitchen table. George and Emily have grown fond of each other over the past few years, but during this scene they experience their first fight. Then they decide that they are meant to be, and their marriage scene ends Act II.
Act III: Death and dying
Nine years later, in a cemetery on a hilltop overlooking the town, Emily, who has died in childbirth, is about to be buried. The characters that, at this point in the play, are deceased inhabit the stage as ghosts and speak as detached witnesses. Emily misses her life, and goes back to relive part of her time on earth, and is now nostalgic and full of appreciation for the simple life that she led. Act III ends with Emily saying of those still alive, “They don’t understand.”
Post play
After rehearsal I caught up with a few of the lead actors, and they all agreed that they are having a lot of fun working together on this play. Hentz and McKosky, as George and Emily, play the two characters whose lives we follow through their school years, marriage, and the death of Emily. Both actors really like the first act, despite the fact that it does not have a major event to define it. Hentz says that its simplicity is the very reason he likes the first act most.
McKosky says her favorite part of this play is “the end of Act I where Laughlin and I are on the ladders; we’re there for a long time, and neither of us is talking, and we get to watch other scenes … I have never had that perspective before.”
The cast and crew hope to see many Harvardians at the Cronin Auditorium this weekend. Friday and Saturday performances start at 7:30 p.m., and the Sunday matinee is at 1:30 p.m. Admission is $5 for students and senior citizens, $10 for adults. Tickets are available at the door; the box office opens one hour before the shows start.
