CurtainUp
The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features,
Annotated Listings
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CurtainUp The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features,
Annotated Listings |
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A CurtainUp Los Angeles Review
Our Town
Unremarkable stories have their place in American drama, but Deaf West Theatre doesn't traditionally do dull. And when the company does aim low, it usually leaps at the material with a new lens, new urgency and actors whose eloquent silence makes you reconsider what you're viewing. A sleepy play and a company with sizzle in its approach to playmaking are not the best creative match, and Sheryl Kaller's new production of Our Town, co-produced by the Pasadena Playhouse, feels boxed in rather than opened up. When Troy Kotsur, Russell Harvard and Alexandria Wailes supplying sign language translations for the play's Stage Manager/ narrator (played by Jane Kaczmarek), these actors look like they're itching to tell stories that are, frankly, far bigger than anything that would ever happen in Grover's Corners. Even Kaczmarek, an excellent and often edgy stage performer, seems trapped in the Stage Manager's congeniality. The deft mix of hearing and signing actors notwithstanding, Kaller's production is recognizably Our Town, doing its damndest to embrace the traditional elements of Wilder's play while simultaneously bringing in Deaf West's unique strengths. Ladders, chairs and the occasional clothesline are the only furniture on David Meyer's otherwise empty stage. The exposed back wall is peeling. The players wear period-appropriate costumes (designed by Ann Closs Farley). This empty space could be any stage, anywhere in America. When teen-agers George Gibbs (Deric Augustine) and Emily Webb (Sandra Mae Frank) share their window-to-window chat under distracting moonlight, the actors are up on ladders, which the company members swirl into place. Apart from George and Emily's gentle courtship, the Stage Manager gives us snapshot glimpses into the lives and history of some of the other residents: George's mother Mrs. Gibbs (Annika Marks) who spends her life clandestinely scheming to get her town doctor husband (Jud Williford) to take even one vacation. There's some gossiping among the ladies of the church choir, largely over the longstanding drinking habits of organist Simon Stimson (Kotsur). Teachers teach, students learn, mothers prepare meals and on it blandly goes. The two young heroes have their dreams which also don't amount to much. He's a baseball-obsessed teen destined to run his uncle's farm and content to skip agricultural college once he realizes that Emily is the person he wants to share his life. Emily &emdash; arguably the play's conscience &emdash; loves George right back, but there is the suggestion that her dreams of "spending my life telling stories" are compromised. In the right actress's hands, her fate makes Our Town that much more of a tragedy than it might otherwise be. Deaf West has that actress. The wonderful Sandra Mae Frank (recently of Deaf West's Broadway revival of Spring Awakening) burns with that youthful fire even after she arrives at the cemetery. Emily's cosmic posthumous "consolation prize" is the realization that even life's simplest moments are endlessly beautiful. Understood, and yes, that's Wilder's mantra, but with Frank's lovely face accepting the beauty and the loss, the play feels that much more poignant. Kudos also to Sharon-Pierre Louis who voices Emily, supplying all the right joy and heartbreak. Deaf West productions are the best opportunities to see many of these actors. Harvard, a live wire and quite dangerous Jerry in the company's recent production of Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo, is almost unrecognizable as the community pillar and town newspaper editor Mr. Webb. The always fascinating Kotsur supplies a much needed dollop of opposition as the angry town drunk Simon Stinson, a man who, even in death, is kicking back at the Grover's Corners bucolic existence. Our Town may be a play that is in equal measure, about small town life and about the nature of existence. It is also a lesson in the art of stage craft and play-making. Deaf West Theatre has spent the last nearly 30 years illuminating this art in exciting new ways. Their next transporting journey &emdash; and ours &emdash; should be to a place with more going on than to Grover's Corners, a place where people come to die. |
Search CurtainUp in the box below PRODUCTION NOTES Our Town by Thornton Wilder Directed by Sheryl Kaller Cast: Jane Kaczmarek, Alexandra Wailes, Troy Kotsur, Russell Harvard, Sandra Mae Frank, Sharon Pierre-Louis, Deric Augustine, Annika Marks, Jud Williford, Marie-France Arcilla, Harold Foxx, David Gautreaux, Marco Gutierrez, Leonard Kelly-Young, Dot-Marie Jones, Amanda McDonough, Natasha Ofili, On Shiu. Choreographer: David Dorfman Scenic Designer: David Meyer Costume Designer: Ann Closs Farley Lighting Designer: Jared A. Sayeg Sound Designers: Leon Rothenberg and Jonathan Burke ASL Masters: Joshua Castille and Charles Katz Production Stage Manager: Jenny Slattery Stage Manager: Jessica R. Agilar Plays through October 22, 2017 at the Pasadena Playhouse, EL Molino, Pasadena, pasadenaplayhouse.org Running time: two hours and twenty minutes with one intermission Reviewed by Evan Henerson REVIEW FEEDBACK Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
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