FRIDAY JULY 27

Now that you are off book for the entire show, or very nearly so, I’m anxious to start delving deeper into what’s happening with your character.

Everything that your character does in Our Town is important. These people care very deeply about their lives and they want to communicate something to the audience. As an example, let’s look at Mrs. Webb and Mrs. Gibbs.

Mrs. Gibbs is pleasant and easy going. She cares deeply for her husband and she worries that he overworks himself. Her house is reasonably clean and her children well mannered and of average intelligence. Son George is gifted athletically. But she has a dream. She longs to see Paris and has even found a way to make this dream happen: she can easily sell a clunky antique and have enough money to make her dream come true.

What happens when she broaches the subject with her husband? As she relates the story to Myrtle, he makes a joke about it, doesn’t treat it seriously. She later tells Frank that it’s her “duty” to see that he gets a rest. What does he say? He tells her that there’s “no sense in going over that again.” Doc Gibbs gets to see his Civil War battlefields every other year. She’s never been to Paris even once, and is shot down if she brings up the subject. How does this make her feel? Is she angry? Resigned? Disappointed? All of the above?

I think Whitney hit on something on Tuesday (24th) during the green bean scene. As she talks about their biennial trip to Civil War battlefields, she becomes almost comically sarcastic about it. I don’t think Julia Gibbs is a shrew and regularly tears her husband down, but she is clearly disappointed that her dream is never going to be realized and her husband doesn’t particularly care. Then she can’t even get Myrtle to listen to her!

Now let’s look at Myrtle Webb. Like Julia, Myrtle has two children. Her daughter Emily is blessed with a wonderful mind. Son Wally, not so much. Her relationship with her husband is a bit more strained; there’s probably more tension at their dinner table than across the way at the Gibbs. Why is it, though, that Myrtle finds it so difficult to pay her daughter a simple compliment? Did she come from a family that tended to close themselves off from one another emotionally? Is her marriage to Charles so dead that she is depressed and loses herself in her work? Is she embarrassed by any show of emotional delight that she can’t bring herself to say things?

All of the answers to these questions inform everything that Whitney and Rita do on stage. As both of these ladies lay out breakfast, what are they thinking? They surely don’t have to concentrate on how to set a table; they’ve done it thousands of times. But as each woman catches a glance out her window, what does she see? What does she long to see? What thoughts go through her mind? 

This sort of analysis is critical for everyone in the show. Even the school children. You guys have to cross the stage three different times. It shouldn’t look exactly the same every time, should it? Sometimes you’re late or you’ve forgotten something. Sometimes you’ve had a tiring day and walk slowly. You may be the best of friends with someone in the morning but by the afternoon, you’ve quarreled and aren’t on speaking terms. Perhaps you’ve gotten a good grade on an exam and can’t wait to get home and show your mom.

Let all of these things help you build a character that is so complex the audience can't help but be mesmerized by you!

Fun Fact about Our Town #9

On p 8, Howie tells Doc Gibbs that Bessie is going on 17.

Horses typically celebrate their birthdays on Jan 1, and Act I happens in May. So either Bessie turned 16 in January 1901, or, more likely since Howie appears to knows her exact age, she was born on Howie’s farm and is in fact almost 17. She might have been foaled in June or even as late as July.

Horses nowadays live to be 20 to 30. But their working life is considerably shorter, depending on the type of work that they do. Since Bessie lived in an era before antibiotics and routine surgery for large animals, she is probably nearing the end of her life. At the very least, she is late middle age. Since she puts in an appearance in Act II, which happens on July 7, 1904, we know that Bessie lives to be nearly 20.

So along with the morning star that gets wonderful bright just before it goes out on p 2, Mrs. Gibbs death foretold on p 4 and Joe Crowell on p 7, here's yet ANOTHER reference to the end of life in Wilder's Our Town.

A horse pulling a milk cart. Notice how tall the back of the wagon is? You almost need a step ladder to access it.