Theater review: Cape Rep 'Our Town' is tear-jerker, eye-opener, expertly executed

BREWSTER ― I’m surprised at how many in the theater audience say they’ve never seen “Our Town,” or that they saw it many years ago, and don’t remember it at all. The drama, at Cape Rep Theatre through June 2, is described by a central character as a journey that covers our human experiences of daily life, love and death. It will sneak up on you for sure. Everyone’s in for a surprise. What starts as an amiable, we’re-just-plain-folk country ramble – delivers a powerful story that many won’t see coming.

Name of show: “Our Town”

Written by Thornton Wilder, directed by Maura Hanlon, presented by Cape Rep Theatre.

What it’s about: Set at the very beginning of the 20th century, this 1938 Pulitzer Prize-winner depicts the seasons of all our lives, unfolding in an out-of-the-way corner of New Hampshire called Grover’s Corners. An ever-present narrator guides the story over a period of about 15 years. As its “Stage Manager,” he knows the future, and steps in often to interrupt the proceedings or chat with the audience. Perhaps it’s to prepare us to better take in what’s coming down the pike, for the actors as well as the audience. This timeless story is really a rehearsal, and reflects all our lives as they continue on their course.

Thornton Wilder's 'Our Town' will sneak up on you

See it or not: Without our realizing it, this deceptively simple story ropes us in, with its plain-spoken dialogue and bare bones stage set, as the playwright delivers his message, pretty much before we are ready to hear it: Life’s fleeting, and yet so precious.

We miss most of it as it whizzes by, and the scenes in this drama beg us to take notice before it’s gone. All at the same time, it’s a gentle slice of life, a tear jerker and an eye-opener. The Pulitzer website concurs – it “remains one of the most performed plays anywhere.”

Highlights: A fine repertory cast includes Jess Andra, Amanda Collins, Brian Lore Evans, Jared Hagan, Nick Nudler, Cam Torres and Lewis D. Wheeler, and includes two newcomers to the Cape Rep stage: Denise Page (Mrs. Gibbs) and Katherine Paulsen (Emily). All invest their various roles with clarity and heart. One mix of characters (all portrayed by Hagan) includes, dizzyingly, a young boy, a dotty professor and a failing alcoholic; another role combo, acted by Andra, includes a young girl, a gossipy old woman and a milkman.

Newcomer Paulsen is riveting in the character of Emily, the fulcrum around which much of the story revolves. Her dazzling performance illuminates and burnishes all corners of this production.

Thanks to seamless direction by Cape Rep’s Hanlon, the play jumps to life, and even the choreography of moving chairs and actors frequently to create different “settings” becomes an integral part of the play’s “process.”

A possible attempt, early on, to adapt the play to more “modern” sensibilities appears to update the character of the Stage Manager from the matter-of-fact New Englander who often defined the role in the past. In Acts II and III the excellent Nudler nails the depth and sensibility of this crucial character, but in early scenes his interpretation of the character seems slightly jarring ― his bouncy, extroverted style doesn’t always mesh with the ongoing flow of the narrative, as if he were describing a TV sitcom. Surely the playwright was never suggesting, “Don’t go deep”; it’s precisely what he did want.

Wilder inspiration for 'Our Town' was in tomb

Interesting fact: According to an early biography of Wilder, inspiration for the many-layered plot came during an archaeological dig Wilder attended in 1920, as he visited a first-century family’s underground tomb while at the same time hearing the noise of human life passing busily over his head, at ground level.

One more thing: If only we could re-wind and watch the play backwards through its three sections, going instead from “Death” to “Love and Marriage,” and ending back at “Daily Life,” making crystal clear our glimpses of what’s in store. All those early “mundane” lines achieve a collective brilliance once they’re viewed from the endgame of that windblown cemetery on the hill.

Act III – take it away, Emily: “It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. All that was going on in life, and we never noticed. ... But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye, Good-bye, world. Good-bye, Grover’s Corners. Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking. And Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths. And sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?”

If you go: “Our Town” performs at Cape Rep Theatre, 3299 Main St., Brewster, through June 2. Performances are 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sunday matinees. No performances May 26 and May 29. Tickets: $40, $25 under age 25. Box office: 508-896-1888, contact@caperep.org

1

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod theater reviews: What we thought of 'Our Town' in Brewster