Our Town, Center Stage, Baltimore, Maryland

Abstract

As theater companies began announcing their first live productions since the outbreak of COVID, I read a lament of “not another Our Town,” by a millennial theater professional whose perspective I often respect. I cringed. I love Our Town, and I always have, and while there are a number of classic plays that I think should be retired, I did not want that to be true of Our Town. I believed (and still do) that it is relevant, especially under thoughtful direction.Stevie Walker-Webb’s modern production at Baltimore Center Stage focused on the timelessness of the relationships while celebrating a particular community, just as Wilder did when he wrote the play. It was an Our Town for this town, as every cast member had “ties to Baltimore” (a claim also boasted by the Shakespeare Theatre Company of their production earlier this year in Washington, DC). Several of the lead actors grew up in Baltimore and returned for their first hometown production, while other actors were familiar faces who regularly work in DC and Baltimore, and a few cast members were appearing in their first roles at a large regional theater. The program included a “What Do You Love Most about Baltimore?” page with cast and staff responses. The production did feel communal, and the young actors were especially compelling. Strangely, for a play that usually has its most lasting moments in Act 3, this staging was more striking in its earlier scenes. I left with a much greater sense of how the people of Grover’s Corners were in their living than in their dying, and I yearned to experience both. Nevertheless, there was plenty to be admired in Walker-Webb’s production.Before the show began, Anton Volovsek’s spare set smartly established that this small town was an urban one. Two sets of concrete-looking stairs with black metal railings were peeking out from the wings on either side of the thrust stage, and there were six streetlights towering above the far sides. The wheeled staircases spun around to create various locations around Grover’s Corners throughout the play—mostly, front stoops and Emily’s and George’s windows. The Gibbs and Webb families had contemporary kitchen counters with barstools in lieu of kitchen tables. Black fabric stretched across the back of the stage, with a round cutout that suggested a low, full moon. Lighting designer Josh Martinez-Davis washed the stage in soft aqua and purple lights.The city steps and streetlights, and sound designer Nina Field’s pre-show soundtrack, which included Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” and Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It,” let us know it was a modern production before Lance Coadie Williams appeared as the Stage Manager in a jumpsuit, durag, and black sneakers with neon soles. Howie Newsome (O’Malley Steuerman) was a bike messenger who delivered milk on a road bike (with “Bessie” painted on the side). Ensemble members carried cellphones and duffel bags as they went about their daily activities during Williams’s opening speech, and they said occasional key words in unison with Williams, although some of these ensemble lines sounded more like hollow echoes rather than a chorus. The overall effect of the set and ensemble staging suggested Grover’s Corners was a small-town version of Baltimore, where the residents felt a strong sense of community.Design elements from multiple recent decades gave the production a contemporary feeling while also reminding us it has been performed many times since Wilder wrote it. This collage of periods was most notable in sound designer Nina Field’s aforementioned music choices and kindall houston almond’s costume design. Professor Willard (Nancy Linden) blended in completely with the audience as a typical theatergoer in her colorful prints, silver updo, and an N95 mask until the Stage Manager summoned her to the stage. The moment of Linden’s unmasking to share the Professor’s findings evoked the present moment, although the rest of the production’s costume choices spanned the last twenty or thirty years.Some costumes were decidedly contemporary, like Rebecca’s “The Future is Female” T-shirt under her striped cardigan, while other costumes suggested less fashion-conscious characters living in modern times. Mrs. Gibbs (Susan Rome) wore an embroidered blouse, jean capris, and clogs under her apron in Act 1. Both Mrs. Gibbs’s and Mrs. Webb’s (Rebecca L. Hargrove) wedding outfits looked contemporary while nodding to the past; one had puffed sleeves and the other a translucent shawl but both were made of synthetic fabrics. The silhouette of Emily’s (Kimberly Dodson) wedding dress was reminiscent of the 1950s although clearly modern with its lace top. almond's design seemed to be suggesting that just as styles regain popularity every few decades, the play itself endures. There were several nonbinary actors in the company, playing Constable Warren, Howie, and Si Crowell among other ensemble roles, and costuming choices were inclusively gender neutral for their characters.The cast appeared to be especially young for the most part, with the exception of Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs, Professor Willard, and Williams as the Stage Manager. Even roles such as Constable Warren or Mrs. Soames that suit a wider range of ages skewed young in this company. Kimberly Dodson and Avon Haughton shone as Emily and George (Fig. 1). They were completely believable as teenagers although it was clear from their bios that they have substantial professional experience. They handled the language with skill, making old-fashioned lines sound fresh and earnest. Dodson’s unabashed pride in Emily’s schoolwork marked her as a modern girl who has been raised to achieve and succeed, and Haughton suggested the newfound arrogance of George in Act 2 by puffing out his chest ever so slightly and endearingly. In the ladder scene, there was more blushing and waving from their staircases than we might see in a production setting Our Town in 1901. This George and Emily were a little more free to flirt, but they were still very young and attractive. Other notable young actors included Chania Hudson as Rebecca, who annoyed and charmed George appropriately at his window. Si Crowell (Alex Velasco Suro) was particularly sweet and clearly admired George as more than just the town’s best baseball player. Howie and Constable Warren (Abigail Funk) shared a friendly, knowing look behind Si’s back as they all bemoaned George giving up baseball to get married. Si’s crush seemed to be known about town through good-hearted gossip.Continuing to underline the sense of community, Simon Stimson’s (Michael David Axtell) choir entered singing an upbeat gospel song under dark, colorful lights, stepping and clapping before bright lights came up in full and they snapped immediately into a staid “Blessed Be the Tie That Binds.” The choir rehearsal looked as if it was fun and Stimson’s demands for the group to sing more softly made sense; this choir was a rowdy, joyful bunch and Stimson wanted to hear a hymn that would not aggravate his hangover. It was moments like these where Walker-Webb seemed to show us this particular community in a way that felt timeless because the specificity of the choices offered a fresh interpretation of the dialogue.Walker-Webb’s production did not focus heavily on pantomime. The actors used props in some scenes that are traditionally mimed and in a few moments where no props, real or mimed, are called for: Doc Gibbs (KenYatta Rogers) held a ceramic coffee mug while talking to George about respecting his mother, and Howie Newsome carried a zip-up insulated cooler, although the bottles of milk were still mimed. As is appropriate for a modern production, the mothers did not seem to labor over cooking breakfast as long as people once did. Food landed on the table much more quickly, and the families ate more quickly too. The most memorable pantomime sequence was snapping the beans. Mrs. Webb held a large metal colander and pantomimed the beans. Strangely, Hargrove threw the ends over the top of the railing upstage of her while sitting on her front steps. It would have been easier and more natural to toss them underneath the railing at her feet, so in this scene, the pantomime was more of an intrusion than a delight.In Act 2, the set and props demanded more attention. White petals began to fall from above as the people of Grover’s Corners prepared for Emily and George’s wedding (Fig. 2). They continued through the act and distracted from the action at times, especially when the characters referred to the “rain” and the solid white petals looked more like snowflakes. The pair of larger staircases was wheeled fully onstage to form a deep V shape, with the stairs leading up to an apex and bouquets lining the railings as if at the ends of church pews. As the play went back in time, Simon Stimson’s piano spun around and it bore a “Rita’s” banner to become the soda shop counter. George and Emily had paper cups and wooden spoons, which they used effectively although they never ate from them. Dodson really lashed out at Haughton about the changes in his character. It was clear that Emily had been bothered by George’s attitude for a long time and once she got an opening to say so, she seized it. This forthrightness made her apology later even more affecting because we saw she really did speak without thinking about how she sounded. It was a human mistake and in an age of texting and social media, when teenagers are almost always speaking their minds and prodding each other to do so, it made sense that she let loose. Especially in this scene, Dodson and Haughton had chemistry that felt young and appealing.As the Stage Manager, Williams came alive when he stepped into characters like Mr. Morgan in the soda shop. I struggled to get a sense of his take as the Stage Manager when he was not assuming other roles. There were more pauses in his direct address speeches than would be necessary to allow for audience reactions, and I was unsure if he was pausing to be conversational or searching for a line. The production would have benefitted from some fluctuations in pace, and it would have made sense for Williams to build that momentum.The production as a whole worked less well when updates were made in lines rather than adding something beyond the dialogue. In Act 2, when Mrs. Webb asks her husband to keep George company at the breakfast table while she goes to check on the bride, there was a brief ad-libbed fight between Mrs. Webb and her husband (who appeared in boxers, tall socks, and a golf polo shirt) that ended with Mrs. Webb saying, “I have to go get dressed!” It felt contemporary for sure, but it stuck out starkly as not a line in the play. By contrast, when George asks Emily if he can carry her books home from school, Lizzie (Monique Barnes) cut a side-eye look at George that could only come from a millennial or Gen Z teenager before stalking offstage with her cellphone. The gesture was hilarious in its force, and it also blended seamlessly into the scene, setting up Emily’s later insistence that “all the girls say so” (Collected Plays 184) about how conceited George has become.When the characters returned to the wedding, Williams performed part of his opening speech as a zealous minister to an equally enthusiastic congregation. George and Emily’s fears were highlighted with lights and sound; the wedding crowd was loud and jubilant and colorfully washed in lights, and the bride’s and groom’s moments with their parents were harshly contrasted with bright white lights and a stiffly frozen ensemble behind them. The Stage Manager stayed on the stage floor, facing out, as George and Emily each climbed a staircase to face each other at the top for their vows. The effect was striking. They looked precarious, like the wedding figures atop a cake, and marriage seemed daunting.By Act 3, the moon that had been waning since Act 1 became only a crescent, and seven wrought-iron chairs in varying designs were placed in a semi-circle across most of the wide stage. Mrs. Gibbs entered stage right under the Stage Manager’s speech and slowly drifted to her chair down left. Rome moved with her limbs extended as if being pulled by a steady current, and she assumed a seated position with arms outstretched and legs raised almost in Boat Pose, which she held throughout Act 3. I suppose the effect was to suggest she was farther along in being “weaned away from the earth” since the other townspeople sat in their graves with hands simply on their laps, although the difference distracted from the scene more than it enriched it. The dead were all barefoot and wearing varying shades of purple and gray in a wide variety of outfits. Nancy Linden’s short purple shift looked almost like a nightgown while others were dressed in clothes they could wear to a cocktail hour. The older women had their hair down and loose.The funeral ensemble entered through the house and made their way onstage via the apron steps. Everyone wore black coats and carried umbrellas as per usual, although Emily was notably in something other than her wedding dress. A knee-length gray trench coat covered Dodson’s long, asymmetrical dress that was blotched with faded shades of purple, and she wore black rubber rain boots. The lack of the wedding dress and dim lighting made Dodson visually harder to track on the wide stage, especially since Emily never sat in her chair until she assumed her place in her grave after revisiting the living.Dodson moved like one of the living and was dressed like one of the dead, and unfortunately, she was blocked to be looking upstage or down at the floor in several key moments. During the birthday scene, Mrs. Webb was looking down at the floor to speak to the invisible twelve-year-old Emily, and Dodson followed her gaze. Yes, Emily is cut off from her mother in the play—as she says, “We don’t have time to look at one another” (Collected Plays 207)—but this blocking meant that we were hardly about to connect with them either. Williams stood far stage right in the shadows, and Dodson had to look upstage to address him, so the audience was shut out from those moments too. When she broke into tears about not being able to go on, Dodson’s commitment to the moment of realization was strong, but Emily had not taken us with her on the emotional journey, and its power was lost.When Emily asks to return for her twelfth birthday, Walker-Webb staged an elegant rewind of the funeral sequence, with the entire party reversing their paths. The grace and time given to this moment contrasted with the rapidity of Emily’s realization about humans’ blindness and her return to the cemetery. As an audience member, I had more time to process Emily’s choice to revisit the living world than her decision to leave it. I have always received those lines about missing life while we live it as a wake-up call, and it was strange to feel them skated over in this production. It was my first time seeing Our Town since becoming a mother, and I found the moment when Joe Stoddard, played by a stoic Frank Britton, shares that Emily died in childbirth and left a four-year-old little boy behind her to be the most affecting moment in Act 3.Despite these criticisms, Walker-Webb’s production affirmed my hope that Our Town is worth reviving. The youthful enthusiasm of Acts 1 and 2 and the buoyant sense of community made it clear that the play still resonates. This production was the first local one I am aware of, at least in recent years, with a director of color leading a racially diverse cast. As with all Western classics, we have a collective history of producing Our Town and including actors of color in the casts without including their voices and perspectives in the creative process. Justin Emeka describes his experience in such an Our Town in his essay “Seeing Shakespeare through Brown Eyes” in Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches: “The irony of the experience was that the production aimed to talk about the complexity of the American identity, yet left many of us feeling invisible and insignificant. An opportunity for cultural expansion was lost, further masking the honesty and diversity of American culture to its audience’s admiration” (97). Walker-Webb deserves praise for crafting a production that uniquely represented Baltimore while also tapping into the play’s universality. Artistic Director Stephanie Ybarra’s program note reads, “In the years I’ve been waiting to do this show, director Stevie Walker-Webb was always at the helm. The depth of humanity and the structural audacity of the script are well matched for Stevie’s bold and heart-centered storytelling. His leadership of this process has been a daily gift of joy, artistry, and community.” If the joyful curtain call to Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Dancing in September” was any indication, the cast would agree with Ybarra, and building community while telling a story of community should be the norm. As the Stage Manager tells us, “something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings” (Collected Plays 196). Although it may not have struck every chord, Walker-Webb’s production encourages us to keep searching for the eternal in Our Town.