Review: Thornton Wilder's Iconic OUR TOWN at freeFall Theatre

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." --Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

In American plays, there are certain scenes that are iconic and stand as the best that this country's playwrights have to offer. I'm thinking of the Danforth fueled vestry room scene in The Crucible. Or the Stanley and Blanche face-off in A Streetcar Named Desire. Or Mary's morphine haze in Long Day's Journey Into Night. Or Biff crying to Willy in Death of a Salesman. Or the culmination of the game, the "Exorcism," in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Or the explosive dinner table sequence in August: Osage County. The list goes on, but Act 3 of OUR TOWN must belong near the top of that hallowed litany.

Although we remember Act 1 of OUR TOWN, which focuses on every detail of a day in the life of a small town in 1901, it's Act 3, taking place years later, where Thornton Wilder's meaning really emerges. Various dead members of Grover's Corners, clad in white, sit in chairs (their graves), and Emily Webb, daughter of the town's newspaper editor, has died young and questions what it's all about. Even though she's dead, she gets to see one more day in the life of Grover's Corners, a random day that causes her much pain to witness, and she says goodbye to it all. No matter how Wilder wanted us to react, it's incredibly emotional, and OUR TOWN is so iconic, that we forget it's deeper, darker meanings. I've heard people call it "quaint," or even "hokey." Grover's Corners, the New Hampshire town in OUR TOWN, may be quaint and hokey, but the play, especially the freeFall version of it, is anything but. (Interestingly, in the late 1940's, a production of OUR TOWN was going to be staged in occupied Berlin, but the Soviet Union nixed it because officials thought the show was too dispiriting and could lead to mass German suicides.)

Eric Davis & Company have not forgotten the heavy meanings of the play in freeFall's current production of OUR TOWN, which runs thru February 14th. When I left the theatre I kept thinking of Emily's last statements, about how fast life goes and to make every moment matter. Not that we don't think these things without Thornton Wilder's or freeFall's help, but sometimes we need to hear it again. That's why I opened this review with the famous Ferris Bueller quote. Life goes too fast, so enjoy each moment, each sunrise, each pondering of the moon, each smile of a neighbor, each hug of a parent, each stroll down the street, each greeting of the milkman, each wave of a newspaper boy, each sip of an ice cream soda, and each production of OUR TOWN when it's playing (which is often).

A family member tells me how much she hates OUR TOWN and refuses to see it again. This is a shame, because freeFall's version is a beautiful production of Thornton Wilder's masterpiece, filled with so many meaningful, spot-on performances. I'm still thinking about it, haunted by moments in it (and I've seen several productions); maybe my family member will change her mind if she sees this particular production.

Nearly 80 years since first being performed, Wilder's words still hit home. "We all know that something is eternal," the Stage Manager tells us in his narration. "And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't even the stars...everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings...There's something way down deep that's eternal about every human being."

Per Wilder's stage directions, there is no set in OUR TOWN. Just an empty stage where an occasional chair or table will appear and then, just as easily, disappear. The props, from cups of coffee to handkerchiefs, are pantomimed. Even though its meanings are quite authentic, the show itself is meant to be theatrical, not real. The fourth wall is constantly broken by the Stage Manager, the narrator who seems to be an omniscient, perhaps God-like presence.

In the central role of the Stage Manager, local treasure Bob Devin Jones is fine with a good strong voice and command of the stage. I'm glad he keeps the tone matter of fact and correctly does not play it as some pipe-puffing, homespun romantic pining about Grover's Corners. Unfortunately, too much of his performance comes from reading from the script on the side of the empty stage. And sometimes he seemed somewhat tentative; this will probably iron out as the show continues its run. Occasionally the Stage Manager steps in the action, or plays various parts (like a priest or Mr. Morgan, the drugstore owner), and Jones excels in all of these instances. He is an affable, knowing presence onstage, so we easily forgive any fumbled lines or accidental misinformation (for instance, on opening night, he mentions that three years have passed between Acts 2 and 3, rather than nine; however, he does mention the correct year, 1913). But whoever is in that role, it surprisingly is not the key performance of OUR TOWN; that honor goes to Emily Webb, beautifully played here by Sarah McAvoy.

McAvoy's Emily is simply heartbreaking. We see her in the early stages of the show, so full of life and wonder, and first love. Then we see her three years later, shaken to the core on the day of her nuptials. Lastly, in the most moving scene of the show (even though Wilder wanted, but failed to avoid sentimentality), we get to see her postmortem return to Grover's Corner one last time to visit the life she has left. Her final words tear your heart to shreds. McAvoy hits all the right notes, and we care so much for her and are extremely saddened by character's passing. We know it's coming, but it still hits hard. Of the various versions of the show that I have experienced, McAvoy is quite simply the finest Emily Webb that I have had the pleasure of seeing.

We truly believe Emily's relationship with neighbor George Gibbs (an exuberant turn by the equally good Taylor Simmons). When the two of them talk in Act 2 in a famous drugstore scene where they enjoy ice cream sodas, we see the connection of the two and understand why it will lead to their wedding day. In this small town in a huge world and an even bigger cosmos, they have found one another. It's so touching, so lovely. Like McAvoy, Simmons is pitch perfect.

Kelly Pekar, playing Mrs. Gibbs, once again shines. All of the cast must pantomime the various props, and Pekar is by far the finest mime of the group. She's so good in the role that we want to see her in every show in the area, not just freeFall's. Nick Lerew gives one of the best performances as the troubled Simon Stimson (he also plays milkman Howie Newsome). Lerew rightly doesn't overdo Stimson's drunkenness. In some ways, he plays him as the only man in town who questions everything, who's mysteriously unglued, and who understands where he fits in (or doesn't fit in, as the case may be) in the universe.

T. Robert Pigott is sensational as Mr. Webb, editor of the Grover's Corners Sentinel; I particularly love how he handled the question-and-answer segment. Jim Braswell is supremely likable and understanding as Dr. Gibbs; one of the play's best moments is his talk with his son, George, about taking over the chore of chopping wood from his mother.

Trenell Mooring as Mrs. Webb, Jim Wicker in a variety of roles, and Antonia Krueger as the town gossip who hilariously loves weddings are all quite strong. The children in the cast, Will Garrabrant as the newspaper boy and Nicholas D'Andrea as the Webb's youngest son, both do well in small roles. As Rebecca, George's younger sister, Natalie Cottrill gives a solid performance. She also gets to carry the theme of the play in one of her lines spoken near the end of Act 1: "I never told you about that letter Jane Crofut got from her minister when she was sick. He wrote Jane a letter and on the envelope the address was like this: It said: Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover's Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America...Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the mind of God - that's what it said on the envelope."

OUR TOWN is a dissection of a small town and how it fits in with the universe and its origins (the mind of God). It deals with the meaning of life and, more importantly, the meaning of death. It goads you into appreciating even the smallest aspects of your existence.

Director Eric Davis knows how to stage a show and how to brilliantly move bodies onstage like pieces in a cosmic chess match. The simple moving of chairs becomes a work of art. Even with three acts, and even though OUR TOWN deals with a certain slowness of small town life, it's a swift-moving two hours and fifteen minutes (with two intermissions). I like how Davis has the cast onstage when the audience filters into the theatre at the very beginning, similar to the start of A Chorus Line. They are all in their space, going over lines and blocking, all wearing ear pieces (that are removed in tandem when the play begins). This underscores the theatricality, the artificiality, of the show, rightfully making us aware that we are watching A PLAY.

Don't worry, there is a freeFall twist in this production. Leann Alduenda has choreographed movements to emphasize the inner life of these Grover's Corners denizens. These dance moments are cool and daring, but also quite odd, like something out of "Twin Peaks." What do they add other than something interesting and beautiful for us to watch? Although these moments indubitably separate this OUR TOWN from any other version of it, I kept wondering: Are they really necessary? Do they illuminate anything that Wilder's words do not?

There are a lot of productions of OUR TOWN being performed these days, even locally; it may be the most overdone play of all time (having no sets or props, it's relatively cheap to stage). In high schools across America, it's still in the top three choices of produced shows. (It was the top choice for high school productions in the 1950's, 1960's and 1990's; nowadays, Almost, Maine is the #1 pick, with A Midsummer Night's Dream at #2 and OUR TOWN at #3.) But of all the productions, make sure to see this one with this cast. When it's over, it will make you think about your life choices and what this thing called existence is all about. It will follow you around. At age 78, OUR TOWN hasn't lost its impact, especially when done right. It's still powerful stuff.

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