By Darlene Donloe
The Pasadena Playhouse and Deaf West Theatre’s production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, featuring a cast that includes deaf and hearing actors, is nothing short of brilliant!
Wilder’s American masterpiece, Pasadena Playhouse’s centennial season opener, is performed in American Sign Language and English.
Nothing is lost in this translation as The Deaf West splitting of certain roles between speaking and signing actors was smooth and unencumbered. The play flowed freely with its incorporation of mime and little, if any, use of props.
This Pulitzer Prize-winning classic takes place in Grover’s Corners, a small New Hampshire village sometime in the 1900s. The village is filled with your average, mundane folks who walk through life with a smile on their faces. This is their everyday existence.
The story is told through the stage manager who, in this case, is played by Jane Kaczmarek. She introduces the town’s inhabitants while gliding the audience in and out of the different scenarios happening to everyday people in the hamlet.
The heart of the story is about two of those everyday people - Emily and George, two kids who are in love.
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| Sharon Pierre-Louis |
Emily (played by Sandra Mae Frank and voiced to perfection by Sharon Pierre-Louis) is the daughter of the newspaper editor, Mr. Webb (Russell Harvard). George, whose father is Dr. Gibbs (Jud Williford) is played with just the right amount of zest by Deric Augustine.
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| Deric Augustine |
You don’t play with Mrs. Webb, aptly portrayed by Annika Marks. Marks is both stern and comedic in her delivery as a mother who, at one point, tells her daughter, “You’re pretty enough for all normal purposes”. Mrs. Webb is a bit taken aback when the daughter asks, point blank if she was ever pretty. Marks’ reaction is hilarious!
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| Harold Foxx |
Harold Foxx brings the hilarity as Howie Newsome, the local milk guy, who daily walks his cow through town. The subtle tone with which Newsome displays walking an invisible cow is a scene-stealer.
One of the highlights of this show is the diverse casting. The cast is so solid and the writing so luminous that the ethnicity of the characters is not a factor. You literally don’t see color.
All of this takes place on a pretty sparse stage save for wooden chairs and ladders effectively used to change scenes. The scenes include a church, a cemetery, a drugstore, and homes. No elaborate set is needed in the production because the actors, under the keen direction of Sheryl Kaller, bring the community and the characters vividly to life.
The star of this show is Wilder’s writing. It’s simplistic, yet engaging and emotional. He creates the framework of a town and allows the audience members to fill in some of the elements with their imaginations.
The play is presented in three acts. It's a bit long, but it’s so charming you can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next. It starts off with just a typical day, then speaks to falling in love and ends with a gut-wrenching scene where the dead are in the cemetery waiting for their soul to go its final resting place.
Kudos to David Meyer for his scenic design, Ann Closs Farley for her costume design and Jared A. Sayeg for his lighting.
Kudos to Kaller and her exceptional cast!
This is the perfect time to visit Our Town.
Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, directed by Sheryl Kaller, stars Jane Kaczmarek, Marie-France Arcilla, Deric Augustine, Harold Foxx, Sandra Mae Frank, David Gautreaux, Marco Gutierrez, Russell Harvard, Dot Marie Jones, Leonard Kelly-Young, Troy Kotsur, Annika Marks, Amanda McDonough, Natasha Ofill, Sharon Pierre-Louis, On Shiu, Alexandria Walles and Jud Williford.
Our Town, through Oct. 22, Tues.-Fri. 8 p.m.; Saturday 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun. 2 p.m.; $25-$92; 626-356-7529; Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Avenue, Pasadena, CA.
Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes (with two intermissions)
On the DONLOE SCALE: D (don’t bother), O (oh, no), N (needs work), L (likable) O (oh, yeah) and E (excellent), Our Town gets and E (excellent).
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