Our Town remembered
We’re going to see Our Town, a play by Thornton Wilder, at the Rose Theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames tonight.
The original play, written in 1938, is set in a small provincial town in America in the early 1900s. I’m looking forward to it because, in January 1976, I was in a school production of Our Town at the Byre Theatre in St Andrews and I never thought I’d see it performed professionally.
I played the part of George Gibbs, a teenager who is smitten by Emily who lives across the street. We had very few props, one of which was a stepladder that was meant to represent the view George had of Emily’s house from his bedroom. Meanwhile George’s younger sister sat on a lower step teasing me about my infatuation. At least, that’s how I remember it. I haven’t seen it for 50 years so I might be quite wrong.
This new production, starring Michael Sheen, is the first by the Welsh National Theatre and has been on tour since January. Tonight is the last night and I was lucky to get tickets because they sold out very quickly. I feel obliged to report that they cost £115 each, which seems pretty steep for a touring production, but that’s cheap compared to many West End shows. Reviews have been pretty good too, so I don’t begrudge it.
Anyway (spoiler alert), George marries Emily who dies in childbirth in act 3. Despite that, our school production was arguably my most enjoyable stage experience at school or university. Sadly there are no photographs of any of the four (Wednesday to Saturday) performances but below I reproduce the cast list, courtesy of the Madras College Archive.
The person who played my younger sister has been confused for someone who wasn’t even in the play as far as I remember, but apart from that I assume it’s accurate. I suspect that S5 pupils (year 11 in England) ‘were not allowed to participate’ because they had mock exams that month. Then again, at least two of the names were in S5 (the year below me), so it can’t have been a hard and fast rule.
One thing I remember very clearly is being picked up for rehearsals by our English teacher, who was directing and producing the play. She lived in Newburgh, which is 20 miles from St Andrews, and she would collect three or four of us en route.
The problem was, she drove an Austin Mini Van that only had two seats – one of which was occupied by the driver. Therefore, if you weren’t in the front passenger seat, you had to sit or lie down in the windowless rear section where there were no seats and no seat belts so corners and hard braking could be tricky for anyone who was in the back because you risked being thrown around like a rag doll.
Health and safety, eh? Despite that we survived and it was all part of the fun.
See also:All the world’s a stage – from Taming of the Shrew to Luke the Labourer
Update: Nice theatre and a very enjoyable show. A talented cast and Michael Sheen was great. I was pleased to see multiple stepladders on stage but I didn’t recognise much else, which suggests that our school production may have been an abridged version or I’d simply forgotten most of it.
There was however a small issue after the show when we discovered the shopping centre car park where we had left our car, having paid in advance, had closed for the night and wasn’t due to reopen until 9.30 this morning, so we had to find a hotel at very short notice and stay in Kingston overnight. Not the end to the evening I had in mind but there you go. Nor were we the only ones. Another couple, from Oxford, did exactly the same thing. Doh!
Home page: The Rose Theatre, Kingston-upon-Thames
Photo: iStock/martinrlee
