The anticipated first production by Welsh National Theatre, an adaption of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, has arrived, opening in the company’s home city of Swansea. When it premiered in Princeton, NJ in 1938, it was to a lukewarm reception, perhaps due to its lack of scenery and the stage manager’s strange narration, now factors in its modern reverence. It quickly became an award-winning drama, garnering Wilder his second Pulitzer Prize, and is now one of the most-performed American plays.
Before becoming a playwright, Wilder studied archaeology, and while on a dig in a first-century tomb in Rome, unearthed a painting of family life. He was struck by how, despite the millennia separating him from his discovery, human lives are universally connected regardless of the passing of time. From this fascination with the interconnecting elements that make up our lives, Our Town evolved.
Welsh National Theatre founder Michael Sheen was, he says, left in emotional tatters after reading Our Town; the need to be with loved ones immediately, simply to tell them how much he cared, was overwhelming. Being a passionate Welshman from a tight-knit community, it was inevitable an adaption would happen when the time was right.
The fictional setting of Grover’s Corners is reimagined as a Welsh town, which is no great stretch of the imagination. Sheen plays the stage manager, who is also the narrator. (Wilder was also known to sometimes take on this role.) His opening lines are, “This play is called Our Town. It was written by Thornton Wilder,” delivered in his enigmatic style with a hint of mischief; it’s a part he clearly relishes.
We witness the daily routines, the local choir rehearsals, marriages and births, the changing landscapes with the seasons, Mrs Webb’s breakfast habits and love blossoming to a backdrop of industrial evolution, the introduction of the car and political tensions.
Captivating from the off, the use of lighting and the movement of the actors to convey each scene is incredibly inventive. I have never witnessed wooden planks, chairs and torches used to a more dramatic effect than within this play. Stepladders: a simple scenery prop that conveyed one of many tear-inducing moments. As we share the inhabitants’ lives, the seemingly irrelevant daily conversations, numerous references about the weather, birds, sunrises, the moon and the stars, we connect with our own lives, reminding us of the simple unrestrained relationships that we share within our communities, with our families and friends.
The creative team on this production is a who’s who of the theatre scene in this part of the world. Director Francesca Goodridge, movement director Jess Williams, creative associate Russell T Davies, design and lighting team Hayley Grindle and Ryan Joseph Stafford, with a cast of leading Welsh actors alongside young up and coming talent, deliver an adaptation that’s at once quiet and thunderous.
Time well spent in the company of Grover’s Corners and its inhabitants, this is a triumphant debut for Welsh National Theatre. Our Town is everyone’s community: life, love, work, and ultimately our relationship with death. The emotion stays well after the final curtain, a reminder of what moves us and makes us.
Our Town, Grand Theatre, Swansea, Wed 21 Jan
On until Sat 31 Jan. Tickets: £20-£45. Info: here
words ANTONIA LEVAY photos HELEN MURRAY
