It’s Passionate, But Not Universal

Although “Our Town” is a theater staple, particularly with community theaters, I had never seen a performance until I sat in the audience during the current run at the Center for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck. 

I have read analyses of the play and was aware of the general themes, as well as the iconic ending line (“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it ... every, every minute?”) spoken by one of the lead characters, Emily. The line seemed generally profound on the page, and yet the delivery  arrived without the same gravitas that it might have held if the play were set in a different time, and I wasn’t seeing it in 2017. 

While the CENTERstage Productions’ cast delivered earnest, passionate performances, the production was weighed down by tepid pacing and a play that did not deliver the punch it promised.

The space in Rhinebeck is really perfect for Thornton Wilder’s play, which tells the story of a fictional American town called Grover’s Corners between  1901 and 1913 without the use of props or sets. There is a “black box” quality about the Center’s stage that emerges when not outfitted by lavish set dressing. 

The actors were responsible for moving plain black chairs around to effectively create households, a choir rehearsal space, a church and a cemetery. My imagination filled in my own concept of Grover’s Corners, and I created an attachment to this town for which the characters express such affection. 

Another strong creative choice was to eschew costumes and, instead, help the audience keep characters and their relations straight but putting the actors in color-coordinated shirts with names printed on the back. These primary colors worked with the pared-down theme and added more visual clues for the audience.

The challenges I had with embracing this show come almost equally from the play itself and the staging and delivery. The play asks me to have an instant nostalgia for the early 20th century that holds no sense-memory for me in the way that it might have for an audience seeing a performance in 1938. 

When I saw Emily, played by the winsome Rebecca Rivera, assert herself as an intelligent young woman who experiences concerns about her impending marriage to teenage sweetheart George (Aaron Stewart, who thrummed with the nervous energy of a young man on the cusp of an adulthood I wasn’t sure he wanted), I wanted her to break free and fulfill her intellectual promise. The play gives us little gritty material about the nuances of young love, or of older love, outside of the painfully thin scenes of platitudes. The most interesting character, Simon Stimson, the troubled alcoholic choirmaster, is never given a real backstory — his tragedy is merely hinted about in gossip. John Remington gave one of the most compelling performances of the night, and yet he had so little to do.

The pacing does not work to inject life into these whispery, melancholy conversations. I understand the need for mime-work for performers to give a sense of physical space and work, but it was too generic and sometimes lasted too long. The dialogue and scenes might have benefited from a faster flow to keep the energy up. 

The tempo was a bit too slow to sustain a rather downbeat, tone-inconsistent play.

“Our Town” runs through Feb. 5 at the Center for the Performing Arts at Rhinebeck. For tickets, call 845-876-3080 or go to www.centerforperformingarts.org.