LAURA JOHNSON
A&E Assistant
A few simple wooden chairs and two plain little tables complete the scene. There is no backdrop, there are few props and most actions are pantomimed.
Welcome to “Our Town,” Thornton Wilder’s American classic, which is the Pepperdine Theatre department’s last production for the 2006-2007 season.
A uniquely script-centered story, it is a drama that requires the viewer to enter the theater equipped with imagination, because the set is as minimalist as it gets.
In 1938, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and ever since it has been a staple in American theater literature.
The fairly large student cast of 22 members is led by three main actors: senior David Sheftell, freshman Ken Korpi and senior Sarah Campbell.
In three acts, the Stage Manager or narrator, played by Sheftell, leads the audience through the cycles of daily life, love, marriage and death in a small New Hampshire town from 1901 to 1913.
The production director, Danny Campbell, who is in his fifth and final year as a teacher at Pepperdine, chose “Our Town” because he felt it was a good platform with which to springboard his already talented acting students into a new level, he said.
“This is probably the greatest American play,” Danny Campbell said, “and as such, it is a perfect place to improve upon acting skills, in that actors are forced to stimulate the audience almost as if they are reading a book; here, the cast is required to create the world for the audience to relate to.”
Choosing to do the play the way it was originally intended, Danny Campbell said there is no better concept than Wilder’s. While the simplicity of the stage may be deceiving, even to the students involved, the play deals with some serious subjects.
“Some of the students, when they found out we were doing this play, were upset because they thought of it as a high school play,” he said. “But it is not a high school play; it’s much more complicated. I just want the audience to get it, and I think this group of students can accomplish that.”
Sarah Campbell plays Emily Webb, one of the main characters in the play. She said it was very trying to rehearse and act with virtually no props or set to rely on to get into character.
“At first it was really weird,” Sarah Campbell said. “We’d keep forgetting where we were all supposed to go, but then eventually we all became one mind and could see the objects together, as if they were real.”
Ken Korpi, who plays George Gibbs, Emily Webb’s love interest, explained that to get into his character George, who he described as an average guy just going through life, he had to concentrate on listening to his fellow castmates.
“There’s a reason there is no flash in this,” Korpi said. “It is a lot harder to act in this type of character-driven type of play, but as actors, it forces us to listen to each other. And also it forces the audience to listen and really focus on the dialogue because it is the only thing to hold on to. This is not light entertainment.”
According to Korpi, the play has the potential to be fantastic in its subtleties.
“If the audience leaves the theater recognizing a life with infinite possibilities, then as actors, we have done our job,” he said.
Every word, every nuance in this script compels one towards a deeper meaning. It is so starkly simple, to prove a point. Even the title “Our Town” suggests that the play is about everyone’s town. The town’s name itself is never mentioned; it is just Anywhere, U.S.A. Yet Wilder did this to ensure that the audience would see themselves as the characters on stage.
To be born, to breathe, to eat, to sleep, to love, and to die: these are the bare bones of a life; things that all human beings have in common. This play unifies the very innate nature of being.
While the production unifies the actors on stage, whom after spending almost four hours together every night since February have become a pretty tight knit group, but it also conjoins the audience through the experience of watching art at its most pure.
“As a senior, and as this is last my last show, I’ve taken from this play some basic things. Enjoy what you have and live in the moment; it’s not all a means to an end,” Sarah Campbell said.
Sheftell quoted Ferris Bueller in regards to what he feels Wilder’s main objective was in “Our Town.”
“Life moves pretty fast,” Sheftell said. “If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.”
“Our Town” will debut in Smothers Theatre Tuesday, April 10, and run through Saturday, April 14. The play will show each night at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are still available for each night and cost $10 with student I.D. For more information, call the Center for the Arts box office at ext. 4522.
04-05-2007