Fair Grove High School Theatre Department Produces ‘Our Town’

On April 20-21 the Fair Grove HS Theatre Department showcased their production of Our Town by Thornton Wilder, written in 1938. The play is a Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about life in a small town called Grover’s Corners set between the years 1901-1913. Wilder´s Our Town explores the relationship between two young children George Gibbs, played by Dane Psyhos (10), and Emily Webb, played by Kayla Hodges (11). Throughout the play their childhood friendship blossoms into a romance and eventually marriage. The lives of the two families and many others in the small town of Grover´s Corners are portrayed in three acts; childhood, adulthood, and death. All three stages of life are well exposed through hardship and struggle.

Although the play offers many locations throughout the small town, Wilder´s intentions are to only use a few chairs and tables to represent life. All other props are completely air gestures. As for the background, a bare black wall. This gives room for the exploration of the universal human experience. The love affair is continuously rediscovered as it asks timeless questions about what the true meaning of love, life and death is. In the beginning of the play, the many stage managers walk through the audience and the stage, setting up the scene. They point beyond the audience and show where everything in the small town is. We are then introduced to the Webb family and the Gibbs family. Mr. and Mrs. Webb have a daughter, Emily, and a younger son Wally, played by Matthew Ferguson (9) . The Gibbs family also has two children, George and his younger sister Rebecca, played by Kailey Faubion (11).

Throughout the play there are other families and members of the small community that are introduced. As the children of the town grow older, so does the town. As the love between Emily and George bloom, Emily falls pregnant and dies during childbirth. They then show that the town is struggling with the loss of Emily and learning the effects of death. As the town watches over the grave, Emily is seen joining many of the other people who have passed in the community. She is then given the chance to go back to one specific day in her life to relive it one more time. But the souls of the dead warn her not to. She ignores them and goes back to one of her preteen birthdays. She relives and regrets. Emily eventually returns and sits in her chair that represents life. There she will sit and rest with the souls of the small town of Grover’s Corners.