Our Town

One of the main highlights of the end of the school year was the Drama Department’s first major student production, the Pulitzer Prize winning play Our Town  by  American dramatist Thornton Wilder. Opening night was on Saturday, 16th June, with  two further sell-out public performances. The production took place in the College’s Black Box, an intimate and atmospheric venue, perfect for the play. Our Town is set between 1901 and 1913 in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners. Wilder was disattisfied with contemporary theatre and set about rewriting its etiquette and protocol. Most notably, he achieved this through the character of the Stage Manager, who breaks the ‘fourth wall’ by talking directly to the audience and commenting on the action, and by having his actors mime much of  their surroundings. Although there is rudimentary furniture in the play, much of Our Town progresses through acted suggestion and gestural implication. With only minimal help from costumes, the actors, all Senior School pupils, were thrown back on their ability simply to speak lines and inhabit character, both of these in front of an audience brought intimately and intimidatingly close to the action so that the usual comfort zone between stage and spectator was eroded. The play was directed by College Drama teacher, Georgina Chakos, who coaxed impressive, polished performances from the cast, many of whom had never acted before and were not native English speakers. The onstage attention to detail, which was also apparent in the colourfully informative programme and the careful scene changes, produced a performance of engaging intensity.  The audience where drawn in to the  homely, domestic scenes involving the families Webb and Gibbs, the blooming and ultimately tragic relationship between Emily Gibbs and George Webb, and the final scenes where the now dead Emily comes back to earth for one day. She chooses her twelfth birthday but finds the whole occasion too painful, finally realising that no one really appreciates life while it is going on and that ‘every, every minute’ should be valued.