Our Town, which opened at the Merc Playhouse last night, is two acts monotony and one act of epiphany.
The play, set at the turn of the 20th century, pulls you in with its banalities of life, a way of being before TV or moving pictures, much less cell phones. Everyone does what they’re supposed to do- men go to work, women quietly labor in the home, and children go to school. There is order and structure, and playwright Thornton Wilder makes sure it’s not exciting.
A few witty lines are interspersed for relief, but by the end of the first act, it’s not hard to wonder what the play is about and whether one can sit through another act like the first.
Fortunately, you wouldn’t be able to experience the epiphany of the third act without sitting through the first two, and you will be glad that you did. It’s well worth the inconvenience because it is in these mundane moments that meaning unfolds.
In the third act, the hopes and dreams of a young family are crushed, not unlike Wilder’s parallels to another young country’s entry into civil and then a world war. (The play was released not long before the start of a second world war.) The deceased are the living, and the living are the dead. Were there happy times on earth? That is open to debate. Only the deceased can compare life to death, and given the choice, they choose to remain in their graves.
What is this play about? This play is an experience. Wilder isn’t relaying a story so much as inviting and then pulling the listener into his world on stage. The story teller plays the stage manager, harking back to Shakespeare’s famous quote, “all the world’s a stage,” and we are mere actors in it.
The play is a snapshot of three days between 1901 and 1913. The narrator begins the story before dawn and ends at 11 pm. Wilder craftily interweaves days with years, revealing the future during the slow trod of the present.
Wilder toys with a theme of being seen and unseen. Emily complains to her next door neighbor George that she’s unseen, while George relays that she has only been seen. George doesn’t see his mother, but Emily’s mother doesn’t see her daughter, and no one except one sees Simone Stimson, not even the town doctor. When someone does reach out, she is too far gone from a long period of isolation, a painful moment that foreshadows what’s to come. And then, despite her lot, she is optimistic, while those that almost had it all turn to pessimism.
Narrator Tim D’Auteuil, who looks like he stepped out of early 20th century New England, where the play takes place, carries the play. His elocution doesn’t disappoint, even when Wilder’s script turns to the banal again and again and… again. Rowan Kelley shows depth as Emily, a double take from her roles in children’s theatre. Orlo Parkinson plays her goofball neighbor George Gibbs. Summer Ellinger is pure delight as his younger sister Rebecca. Nimmi Chandwaney, a newcomer to acting, shines as their mother, Julia Gibbs, and longtime actor Phil Quevillon again shows his mastery and versatility as an actor in his portrayal of Doctor Gibbs.
Mike Carmichael, who plays Emily’s father, provides comic relief, while Sharla Lynn terrifies as the outwardly loving but inwardly cold maternal figure. Tani Erickson, herself a lively person, aptly imbues the tragic Simone Stimson. Merc Founder Carolanne Steinebach convincingly plays the opinionated Loretta Soames.
Rounding out the cast are Ivan Carmichael, Asher Fisher, Azmun Pixie-Plott, Elliot Pixie-Plott, Bill Bley, Gwen Vernon, Ralph Schwartz, Fiona Naney, and Kaileah Akker.
Our Town, and this town, would be a lot duller without these talented actors bringing these characters to life.
Our Town runs through Oct. 19 with the following performances:
7 p.m. Oct. 9–11 & 16–18
2 p.m. Oct. 12 & 19
To purchase tickets, visit https://www.mercplayhouse.org/tickets.
