With ‘Our Town,’ Shakespeare Fest Honors The Nation’s Anniversary

Would you be astonished to learn that one of the plays being performed in this month's Cape Cod Shakespeare Festival in Chatham (CCSFC) is not by Shakespeare? You shouldn't be, says Alan Rust, artistic director and founder of CCSFC.

 Along with "Macbeth," which Rust describes as "a haunted tragedy of power

and ambition," this year's festival, in a nod to the 250th anniversary of the country, is also presenting Thornton Wilder's classic American play, "Our Town." 

 Adding popular plays to Shakespeare festivals has a long history, both in this country and abroad, Rust said. In fact, the addition of the 1980 adaptation of Dicken's "Nicholas Nickleby," to The Royal Shakespeare Company's lineup that year "literally saved the company," Rust said recently.

 "Our Town," written by Thornton Wilder, opened on Broadway in February 1938. It was the era of Busby Berkley and Florenz Ziegfeld musicals, often featuring elaborate, lavish and spectacular dance numbers. 

 According to Francesca James, the five-time Emmy winning actress, director and producer who is directing the CCSFC production of "Our Town," producers at the time "were looking for higher quality, less expensive straight plays to avoid the high investment risks of the early 1930s." 

 Wilder was happy to deliver. According to James, "he had feared the opulent costumes and spectacular sets of Broadway did a disservice to the written word."

 Wilder gave them a play with virtually no sets, she said, adding, "No curtain. No scenery. No props. With the use of pantomime to convey the story." According to James, Wilder felt that "the more details you put on stage, the more difficult it was for the audience to relate to their own experience." 

 The plot follows the relationship of young Emily Webb and George Gibbs, who meet, marry and separate over the course of 1901 to 1913. Its main theme is simple, James said: "Human beings fail to recognize the value of life while they are living it."

 A summer resident of Peterborough, N.H., Wilder tried to capture that town as the fictional Grover's Corners of "Our Town," although the geography was a little bit off, James said. At one point in the play, the "Our Town" Stage Manager, played in this production by Rust, gives specific coordinates for the town. "They placed it about 300 meters off the coast of Massachusetts in the Atlantic Ocean," she said with a smile.

 Many CCSFC favorites, among them numerous veterans of the Monomoy Theatre, will be back again this year. In addition to Rust as Stage Manager, Laura Axelrod, who delighted audiences as Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet," will be playing Emily. Last year's popular Romeo, Reid Williams, is Dr. Gibbs, and Gus Cook, new to the festival, will play George Gibbs. And Carol Odell, who designed the CCSFC permanent set, has given it an additional New England flavor.

 "In the American culture of the late ‘30s, Wilder and the producers of ‘Our Town’ were taking quite a chance, putting this stripped-down, simple story about ordinary life in a small town up against the Ziegfeld Follies," James said.

 The play was a major success. It won the Pulitzer Prize for drama that year and was later described by playwright Edward Albee as "the greatest American play ever written." "Our Town" would go on to remain a staple of the American theater.

 "It is estimated that not a night goes by that the play is not being performed somewhere in the world," James said. Presenting it as part of the 250th celebration of this nation seemed natural. 

"We thought it was fitting as a reminder that, no matter what is happening in the world, we must hold onto the importance of community we share and the beauty in everyday life," she said.

 The Cape Cod Shakespeare Festival in Chatham will run from July 20 to 30 at 7 p.m. in Kate Gould Park in Chatham. Plays are presented free of charge on alternating nights with no production on Fridays. "Our Town" will play on July 20, 22, 26, 28 and 30. Bring chairs or blankets. For more information and to contribute, visit ccsfc.org.