Connecticut Repertory Theatre takes a trip to OUR TOWN through October 16

Our Town
by Thornton Wilder
Directed by Robert Ross Parker
at Connecticut Repertory Theatre's Nafe Katter Theatre
at University of Connecticut in Storrs through October 16
www.crt.uconn.edu

I grew up in New Hampshire, so every visit to Thornton Wilder's fictionalized Grover's Corners is a welcome trip home.  The act of a nostalgic visit to a seemingly simpler time is one of the ready pleasures of Our Town...until the third act of this deceptive masterpiece.  Rather than embracing a corny, idealized vision of happily-ever-after, Wilder shows how life speeds up, disappoints and dissipates.  Connecticut Repertory Theatre, on a roll after a wildly successful summer, opens their new season with a straightforward, effective and powerful production that will move audiences whether or not they share my New Hampshire roots.

Offering a three-act slice of life in the Granite State, Our Town is relatable to every town.  The recent documentary O.T.: Our Town shows how a group of high schoolers in South Central Los Angeles connect with Wilder's 1938 drama.  A starry, traditional production led by Paul Newman was a sell-out hit on Broadway, while David Cromer's Spartan, non-sentimental production at the Barrow Street Theatre beguiled the funky downtown crowd.  Because the work examines grand themes (life, love, marriage, death, responsibility), the play maintains its ability to resonate across cultures and time.

With a playbill biography full of edgy credits as co-Artistic Director with the Vampire Cowboys, one expects that director Robert Ross Parker will be tempted to turn the play inside-out or go a non-traditional route, like Cromer's production.  That would be a wrong assumption.  Parker stages the play in a straightforward, textbook rendition that manages to let the play do the talking, rather than the production.  It may not be a redefining take on Our Town, but it is an honorable and respectful one.

Generally the role of the Stage Manager, a narrator who leads us through the town and the lives (and deaths) of its inhabitants, is cast with a star.  This is surprising as the role is subtle and offers no grand moments or sweeping gestures.  Like life, the role is filled with small moments.  As such, the decision to cast an actor known for making odd, intriguing and envelope-pushing choices is risky.  David Patrick Kelly is well-known to Connecticut audiences for his roles in such challenging Hartford Stage productions as Woyzeck, Tooth of Crime and Richard Foreman's mind-blowing Pearls for Pigs.  His film and television roles also show his penchant for the unusual with memorable turns in the cult classics The Warriors and Twin Peaks.  The Stage Manager, a role most recently played in Connecticut by Hal Holbrook, seems ill-suited for someone whose career has been the polar opposite of "folksy."  Turns out, Kelly is just fine in the subdued part, although not revelatory.  He steps back and embraces the non-showy nature of the part and lets the other cast members shine (although he does one fine bit playing the disgruntled Mrs. Forest).

The cast has several stand-outs.  First and foremost, Kelsea Baker is delightful and heartbreaking as Emily Webb.  Her goofy take on the part in the first act twists the role away from its usual Pollyanna roots and makes her an unlikely romantic interest for her neighbor George Gibbs.  Baker deepens her Emily in the second act showing her growing maturation as she asserts herself with George while revealing her childlike terror on her wedding day.  In the downbeat third act, Emily is revealed as an incandescent beauty that can neither face death nor bear to relive her life.  The performance is haunting and worth the trip to Storrs alone.

Fortunately, there are other singular cast members including the actors playing Emily's parents, Brad Bellamy and Carolyn Popp.  Bellamy, as the town's beleaguered newspaper publisher, is a riot as Charles Webb.  His jittery, comic take on the role adds a great dose of laughter through the evening.  Popp, playing Webb's wife Myrtle, is realistic, shaded and appropriately motherly.  She is a delight to watch.

On the other side of the fence lives the Gibbs family.  Dr. Frank Gibbs, the pater familias, is played by David Sitler.  Sitler has a wry take on the role and shines during the moment where he gently chides his son for allowing Mrs. Gibbs to chop wood instead of doing his chores.  Mary Cadorette, a UConn alumna, embraces her role as the mother with much gusto, but tends to overdo the wide-eyed hokum that can undermine the work's darker textures.  In a play that utilizes a bare bones set and few props, less is more.

The Gibbs' daughter is played by the expressive Hannah Kaplan who does a fine job keeping George's little sister from being a bratty annoyance.   In the pivotal role of George Gibbs, Michael John Improta keeps pace with Kelsea Baker.  His transformation from a romance-addled teen obsessed with baseball to a mourning father is plausible and powerful.  It is a tricky role to essay and Improta maintains the character's center as he evolves.

The secondary roles are a bit mixed.  Adam Schneeman as milkman Howie Newsome and Laura Zabbo as town busybody Mrs. Soames do an excellent job painting a portrait of the everyday people who populate our lives.  Ken O'Brien, another UConn alum, is fine as Constable Warren, but less successful in his portrayal of Professor Willard.  Bryan Swomstedt's performance as Simon Stimson, the church choirmaster, reveals little of the dread lying at the core of this tormented character and fails to capture his raging alcoholism.  As the only blot in the otherwise pristine community in of Grover's Corners, Stimson must always serve as a reminder of the darkness that is an undercurrent in Our Town.

But, ultimately, these are small quibbles.  Come the harrowing third act, there are audible sniffles in the audience.  The play does not evoke tears by sappy means.  We cry because we realize the truth at the heart of Our Town: that youthful exuberance disappears, big moments happen, but mostly daily life takes over, accelerates.  Then we die and life moves on without us.  In my New Hampshire hometown, a stone's throw away from Peterborough where Wilder wrote the play, the town hall abuts the cemetery.  In other words, the center of the town's life is also the headquarters of the town's dead.  Connecticut Repertory Theatre's sturdy Our Town brought me home again to the Granite State with a powerful array of emotions. 

 

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