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• "On the Town" Review

  • Civic's 'Our Town' evokes its time
    Play still resonates in modern climate
    Friday, March 11, 2005
    BY JENN MCKEE
    News Arts Writer
    Years ago, in a University of Michigan film course, my classmates and I were scheduled to watch Satyajit Ray's "Pather Panchali," and the professor gave us specific instructions on how to arrive at the screening: "Walk at a leisurely pace," he said. "Don't rush. You have to slow yourself down to appreciate this film and really take it in."
    
    One could say the same about Thornton Wilder's classic play "Our Town," now being produced by Ann Arbor Civic Theatre. Drenched in small town nostalgia, the two-and-a-half-hour play examines the extraordinary qualities of quiet, wholly common lives at the turn of the last century - hardly the stuff of Bruce Willis movies. Yet its simplicity and charm are, by and large, timeless, and despite (or perhaps because of) the cynical times in which we live, the play's unadulterated innocence still emits a powerful tug.
    
    "Town" focuses primarily on two neighboring families in the hamlet of Grover's Corners, N.H.: the Gibbses and the Webbs. With a folksy, storytelling stage manager (Thom Johnson) as our guide, we soon learn that young George Gibbs (John Boonin) is an up-an-coming baseball star, while Emily Webb (Amanda Akins) is a conscientious, serious-minded student. As the two grow up, they fall in love and marry, but shortly thereafter, they face tragedy, and Emily comes to realize how precious life is.
    
    The production's large, black stage is almost totally bare (per the script), leaving the actors to pantomime the majority of their actions, and other members of the cast - who sit at the stage's periphery throughout the show - produce sound effects for window shades, snapping beans, a horse, milk bottles, and clucking chickens. Overall, the effects are well-executed in terms of timing, and the convention works well to underline the play's inherent artifice.
    
    The stage manager's presence achieves the same effect, of course, and in the role, Johnson skillfully projects the Yankee dialect and slow-paced atmosphere of Grover's Corners. Akins also strikes the right notes, making Emily wholly sympathetic as she journeys from typical adolescent insecurities in the first two acts to far graver, existential crises in the third.
    
    Though a few members of the cast occasionally rushed through lines and didn't project well enough to be heard clearly on opening night, Anne Bauman (Mrs. Soames), Karl Kasischke (Simon Stimson), Sarah Hopp (Rebecca Gibbs) and Jon Elliott (Mr. Webb) all make strong contributions despite their small roles. In addition, director Glenn Bugala wisely plays up moments of humor in the script, such as the painfully uncomfortable conversation between George and his soon-to-be father-in-law on the day of the wedding, and the choir rehearsal presided over by the hilariously bitter Mr. Stimson. Such moments of levity provide a welcome break from the play's overriding earnestness.
    
    Nan Wirth's costumes - particularly Emily's outfits - subtly establish the time period with smart style. And although I felt the show's pace bog down slightly in places, I couldn't help but think of my film professor and then wonder if I'd just walked too quickly from my car to the theater.
    
    "Our Town" continues at 8 p.m. tonight-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Washtenaw Community College's Towsley Auditorium, 4800 E. Huron River Drive. Call (734) 971-2228 or visit www.a2ct.org.