nothin “Our Town,” The Sitcom | New Haven Independent

Our Town,” The Sitcom

T. CHARLES ERICKSON PHOTO

After watching the new revival of Our Town at Long Wharf Theatre (reviewed here by Christopher Arnott), two Independent reporters — one who had repeatedly seen and read the play before, one who hadn’t — regrouped at Atticus Bookstore Cafe to hash out their divergent reactions. Excerpts of the conversation follow:

The Experience


Markeshia Ricks: How many times have you seen Our Town?

Aliyya Swaby: I think I’ve only seen it twice but I’ve read it like five times.

MR: Tell me why you’ve read it five times.

AS: Every school has made me. I had to read it at Yale in a playwriting class, I read it at my high school because it was one of the required books, and then I went to this academic program when I was 10 and they made us read it. I never liked it. I always thought it was really boring. When I was younger, it was hard to grasp certain things. We read it more literally.

In the college playwriting class, we discussed it more like, How are the playwright’s choices linked to the theme?” That was more interesting, but I don’t know. I think its really depressing. I generally like more surrealist plays and magical realism. I liked fantasy a lot when I was younger. My favorite works are ones that are not like life, and this is the most about life.

MR: The most life-like.

AS: Yeah.

MR: So I have no background of having read it or seen it performed. So I didn’t really know what to expect. But I definitely knew not to expect that having a diverse cast would change the script at all, that they weren’t going to actually change it.

Diversity

MR: I was hoping the diversity would come out and affect the acting anyway. And it did in certain ways. The people we interviewed last night said, Oh, I liked the fact that there were people of other ethnicities, that it wasn’t just a homogenous cast. It really didn’t distract me once I got into the play.”

It didn’t distract me but I liked that it did come out occasionally. The accents. The guy with the cow. I’m glad I could hear his accent. If he didn’t have an accent, I might not have paid as much attention to that character, and it might not mean as much to me.

AS: I feel like usually when they talk about diversifying, they’re only adding more black people. So I’m glad that they added other races and ethnicities. Though, really he was the only one who had a speaking role, who wasn’t black or white.

Staging:


AS: At the back there was a chalkboard with chalk drawings of their houses to represent the town; then a line of chairs in the back; two picket fences at angles; and in the foreground, two tables representing the Gibbs and the Webbs’ houses. It’s always really sparse. I think it’s in the stage directions to have it like that.

MR: I expected something to cue me to what the time period was. Visually, clothes from an older time period would have cued me as well. I was having so much cognitive dissonance. At certain points it was like, yes, this is that play where all of the people look alike, and then it’s not.

The stage manager, who also acts as narrator in a lot of ways — the play would have felt different for me if she wasn’t the person doing the narrating. I really enjoyed her voice. It doesn’t feel like dialogue from a play. I don’t know if that’s just good acting, but when she says her lines, they feel like something she would say. They feel natural.

AS: I guess its always like that when you have a play from a really long time ago. You sort of need to change certain phrases to make it seem more natural or just get the acting right.

Second Act


Swaby.

MR: I took from the second act that marriage, for a very long time across history, has been a sign of You’re a grown-up now.” And people are still at war with that.

AS: And they’re getting married later.

MR: They’re getting married later, or not at all. I’m one of those people who might not get married at all, but I’m like, I’m a grown up.” Why do I have to say that?

Third Act


MR: Having seen this version of the play, how does it compare to the other times you’ve seen?

AS: So one time I saw it was a middle school production. I think I saw it one other time on stage, but it all runs together because I’ve read it so many times. I liked the way that it was set up. In the last act, they had the cemetery where all of the chairs are up on stage. The dead people were sitting in the chairs as well as some photographs. I’m not sure if there was significance to who those people were — if they had significance to Wilder?

Then they had the people at the funeral mingle among the chairs and the foreground space was used for Emily Webb to re-live her birthday. I feel like the main difference was the mingling, the living people walking among the chairs instead of keeping where they’re buried separate. I think it makes sense to have them mingle. It makes it more powerful to know that the dead people are watching the living people. And they’re so close to them, but the living people have no idea.

MR: I definitely think the last act was my favorite, though it is the most depressing. But its really powerful the way that everybody is there and silent and speaking up occasionally. It was like, Wow, what if dead people are really talking to each other.” It’s kind of scary.

It also makes me think a lot about the idea, or the importance, of being present in one’s life. And the fact that you are doing a lot of unimportant things and probably are missing out on opportunities to connect with people you care about. That was sad, but it was also a good reminder.

The Theme


Ricks.

MR: What is the overall theme of Our Town?

AS: I think part of it is relating the play and its structure — it’s a very linear structure with the beginning, then love and marriage, and then death, matching the structure of normal human life. But its all in the confines of a very small town with all the same kinds of people who know each other.

What I take from it is that, yes you should be present and be aware of what you have. But also what you get at the end is sort of a shrug … like it is what it is.” And I think that’s part of the reason why I don’t like it. I don’t want to think that way about my life.

MR: I think what I took away is that it is an incentive to not think that way, like this could be your life and it doesn’t have to be.

The Directing


AS: I thought that it was well directed. The way they acted the lines, I was laughing more than I expected.

MR: Yeah. The dads were particularly good to me. They reminded me of TV dads.

AS: Their lines were very sitcom‑y. I never would have thought Our Town could be played as a sitcom.

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