“Our Town” – a Play by Thornton Wilder

Our Town – A Play by Thornton Wilder
The Almeida Theatre until 29th November 2014.

Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize winning play is set in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire at the beginning of the twentieth century. Our Town depicts a very small community as it goes about its daily tasks. This snapshot of rural life, with all it’s simplicity, is presented as a microcosm for life wherever and in whatever century one might be. Wilder’s instructions were to perform the play on a bare stage with no props, thus forcing the actors to mime their actions and for the dialogue to be the focal point. Luckily there is the character of the stage manager, played by the director David Cromer, who acts as a narrator.

Certain lines in the first act echoed the contemporary themes of inequality and women’s rights but then these issues will always be topical which may have been Wilder’s intention. The concept of the play’s immortality is highlighted by the stage manager when he suggests that a copy of Our Town should be buried along with a Bible, the American Constitution and a copy of Shakespeare’s plays. In the final act one of the characters, Emily who died in childbirth, returns to Grover’s Corners to relive her twelfth birthday. But she soon retreats to heaven  because mortals don’t have an appreciation of life.

Some of the “eternal” themes worked by Wilder definitely rang true for today’s world but the miming and the interaction with the audience felt contrived. The melee of accents, except for the stage manager who stuck to his native North American, was irritating as opposed to clever. I went away with an appreciation for Wilder’s writing and rather less so for the actual production.