Ordinary moments find meaning in ‘Our Town’

“Our Town,” the next stage production by Soldotna High School’s drama department, isn’t like the musicals and dramas they’ve put on in recent years. There are no sets or props, the audience sits onstage looking out at the auditorium, and the sound effects are created live at a Foley table that isn’t hidden from view.

Though the show is different from anything else the school has staged, Director Sara Erfurth said “Our Town” is a classic — “one of those canonical pieces of literature, like ‘The Crucible’ or ‘Death of a Salesman.’”

“Our Town” explores beauty and meaning in the mundane parts of life, Erfurth said, portraying an ordinary town in an ordinary moment. At the center of the narrative are George and Emily, two neighbors and classmates, as the show explores pieces of their lives in early 1900s New Hampshire. The show has a sense of “gravity,” she said, that some other recent productions haven’t required.

Elias Bouschor, who plays George, said the show isn’t like anything else he’s acted in before. Compared to musical “Grease” or comedy “Clue,” “Our Town” is his first “proper drama.” That means it’s a different challenge.

In George, Bouschor said he’s embodying an average kid, good at baseball, not the smartest, relatable.

“He’s not exemplary,” he said. “He’s just a person.”

Emerson Kapp, who plays Emily, similarly said she plays an ordinary girl in a small town. Emily shines through her love for life and her ability to “value the small things.”

It’s “abnormal,” Bouschor said, how normal the setting of “Our Town” is. That’s just another way the show subverts expectations and leads its audience to appreciate its subtleties.

Because the show broadly eschews sets and music, Kapp said the beauty is in the vulnerability of the acting, with the traditional walls between themselves and the audience torn down. She said they welcome the audience to share their emotions.

Kapp said the unusual setup is different for the actors, too, who often can’t see the people who’ve come to see the performance through the stage lights — “real people that are coming to see me do this.”

“It’s something that you won’t find anywhere else.”

That sentiment was echoed by Hannah Burton and Zane Wight, who play Emily’s parents in the show. Burton said that, often, when she’s acting with the house lights down and the stage lights on, it’s like being in another world with her fellow actors. It’s a unique challenge to act right alongside the people she’s performing for.

The production design is beyond minimalist, with two houses realized by only two tables. The actors pantomime everything they do, like when Burton cooks up breakfast and serves coffee without an oven, plates or mugs.

Wight said the pantomiming draws the viewer’s attention to the “little things” at the heart of the show, enhancing the mundane moments like sharing a kitchen space or dinner table with family members.

Each movement is accompanied by effects from the Foley table, like the sound of a newspaper hitting the front step, the hooves of a horse, or the creak of a staircase.

During a Friday rehearsal, Audrey Hobart-Anderson and Rebecca Pioch could be seen operating the table, using a variety of tools to create sounds to match the action happening only a few feet away. They demonstrated different uses of sheets of metal to create the sound of rolling thunder.

Erfurth said the show features a stage manager who is part of the show, who engages with the audience and understands what’s happening in a metatextual way, ushering actors offstage, speaking directly to the audience and existing as a narrator and a character in the show.

Because the audience is onstage, much closer to the actors than they usually would be, there’s a unique opportunity to become “immersed within the action and the emotions and the feelings of this play,” Erfurth said.

“Having them that close really presses the importance of having to do an authentic performance,” Bouschor said. That’s especially true without props or sets to bounce off of; they all have to commit wholly to acting with one another.

The show is about, Erfurth said, finding value in the smallest aspects of daily life, “the beauty of real people living real lives.”

At the Foley table, Hobart-Anderson and Pioch echoed that sentiment, though they said it isn’t always an uplifting journey. Hobart-Anderson said she thought the show explored the meaning of living and the drive to avoid letting life pass by — “It’s not supposed to be a happy one.” Pioch said the show inspires a desire to treasure life and relish its moments.

“Our Town” runs in the Soldotna High School Auditorium this weekend, Thursday through Saturday, April 24, 25 and 26. Shows run at 6 p.m. all three days, with an additional 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday. Tickets cost $10 for adults and $5 for students and can be purchased at the door.

For more information, find “Soldotna High School” on Facebook.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.