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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Small town with a big heart
Our Town Stage 2 The Crescent Theatre **** GROVER'S Corners, New Hampshire has seen
quite a population explosion at the hands of Stage 2, who must be one of
the leading youth theatres in the region, if not the country. As usual they work on the principle that a
playwright's original cast list is merely a basis for negotiation so the
role of stage manager, the narrator of Thornton Wilder's world set in
small town 1900s America, becomes four stage managers. Then the pivotal role of Emily Webb becomes two
Emilys, a young version (Ella Swarbrick) and an older Emily (Isabelle
Harley), the same two for the price of one goes for her childhood
sweetheart and future husband with a young George (Mark James) and older
George Gibbs. (Ben Holmes). Wilder set his Pulitzer Prize winning play in an
empty theatre using only ladders, tables and chairs as props to
represent a town that only existed through the characters introduced by
the stage manager and the pictures drawn in the imagination of the
audience. The stage managers, Annabelle Quinin, Laura
Dowsett, Teigan Jones and Colette Nooney, did well in breaking through
that fourth wall and speaking directly to the audience with some nice
lines in humour from time to time. They also produce all the sound
effects from trains to horses, chinking milk bottles, to rain – just in
case anyone has forgotten what rain sounds like. They set the scenes but this is a play which
depends heavily upon Emily, the central character through the three acts
of daily life, love and marriage and death and eternity.
Ella and Isabelle do not disappoint and Isabelle
in particular manages the emotional scene of being the dead Emily with
some real feeling. Indeed the women shine in this production from
the bossy Rebecca Gibbs, played with real spirit by Jess Smith, to the
mothers Mrs Gibbs, played in a matter of fact, motherly way by Grace
Smith and across the strret there is Mrs Webb, Emily's mother, played
with all shades of maternal emotion by Elin Dowsett, last seen as Eva in
Picasso's women. The men are perhaps a little more peripheral with
Sam Hotchin playing the nice guy Dr Gibbs and Matt Childs wielding the
cane to limp his way through as the editor of the Grover's Corners
Sentinel and Emily's father,
Young George features heavily in their big scenes
as frist his father tries to teach him about responsibility and then his
future father-in-law tries to teach him about . . . who knows what in a
nervous exchange on the morning of the wedding. There are cameos from the likes of Sam
Allan as Constable Warren, Luca Hoffman as Howie Newsome the milkman
with his galloping horse, or at least two coconut shells, Bessie
and the paperboys Joe and Si Crowell both played by Roni Mevorach and
the town drunk and organist Simon Stimson played by George Bandy. Simon
was to hang himself and become the misery among the dead in the cemetery
although we never did find out about all the troubles he had had to put
up with in his life. He played for the choir and speaking of the
choir, the scene of their practice probably did not work as intended.
Using the orchestra pit and under stage area meant that most of the
audience saw the odd hat and perhaps a nose, a subterranean glow and
then heard unconnected voices. The population of the town, we were told, was
2642 and director Lucy Bailey-Wright tried to come as close as she could
to that with a large chorus of 22 and a cast of 25, which might not have
been Thornton Wilder's intention but he would have been delighted in
getting so may people involved in his play which has become an American
classic. It was set in 1901-1913 but first performed in
1938 and Wilder managed to bring in some of the politics of a 1930s
America, recovering from depression, into the plot.
He had lived in New Hampshire where the play is
set, although the latitude and longitude of Grover's Corners given in
the play would actually put it in Massachusetts, and anyone who
has been to the USA and experienced the delights of small town America
will recognise Our Town immediately. It is a world that has changed little a century
on As a production it lacks a little pace, particularly in the second half but that should pick up as the week goes on, and some of the New Hampshire accents suffered from Continental drift but once more Stage2 showed a well drilled and well rehearsed cast – and crew – producing yet another polished performance. With no sets, no scenery and no props we relied
entirely upon the young cast to both show us and tell us all about
Grover's Corners, and, as usual, Stage2 did not let us, or indeed
Wilder's famous town, down. To 21-07-12. Roger Clarke As a footnote, while Stage2's cast and crew are
striving towards professional standards an enthusiastic section of the
audience, made up of friends and colleagues, are doing them no favours
with what, to the rest of the watchers, is the theatrical equivalent of
canned laughter. Cheers and hoots of laughter, wildly out of
context, when a character appears or speaks is distracting for the rest
of the audience, destroying the illusion of theatre, and has to be
off-putting for young actors trying to portray a character. There is no
harm meant at all, just the opposite in fact, but it does detract from
what is a fine performance. |
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