A legend in the theater world says that every month, somewhere in the world, a new production of Our Town, a play by the American playwright Thornton Wilder, from 1938, opens there. Whether the legend is true or not it’s not, this October it’s his turn in Barcelona, ??because the family and neighborhood story that Wilder wrote is now being presented in the Fabià Puigserver room of the Teatre Lliure.
Of Our City, the playwright Edward Albee went as far as to say that it was “the best American play ever written”. It will be necessary to go to the theater in Montjuïc to see if, indeed, the statement of the author of Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf? it is true, especially in this proposal by Ferran Utzet. The director already has a rich career of successes, such as Dansa d’Agost, which he premiered at La Biblioteca, where he has also been Oriol Broggi’s assistant director in several productions, such as Incendis.
Utzet arrives at Teatre Lliure with a great production from the same center, directing a well-nourished cast, which includes many important names from the Catalan scene. With Rosa Renom in the lead in the role of narrator, she is accompanied by Guillem Balart, Jenny Beacraft, Rosa Boladeras, Tai Fati, Oriol Genís, Paula Malia, Carles Martínez, Biel Montoro, Lluís Oliver, Mercè Pons, Xavier Ripoll, Isabel Roccatti , Josep Sobrevals and Albert Triola. The dramaturgy is by Llàtzer Garcia, and the translation by Víctor Muñoz Calafell.
Wilder is the author of well-known novels, such as El pont de Sant Lluís Rei, which had its film version, and of plays such as The matchmaker (L’alcavota), which served as the basis for the musical and later the film movie Hello, Dolly! But this time, the Wisconsin playwright wanted to write a play that explained the things that happen to ordinary people, not the powerful or the upper social classes.
From this idea arises Our town (La nostra ciutat), and this is what happens: In a theater, the councilman presents to the public the rural town of Grover’s Corners, in New Hampshire, one of the Atlantic states of the USA. Among its inhabitants, there are the Gibbs and Webb families, who are neighbors, and the audience will especially get to know Emily Webb and George Gibbs, who will soon fall in love and marry. Over the course of twelve years, the work will follow the changes in the life of this couple: from mundanity to devastation, passing through romanticism: a microcosm of the cycle of life.
On the fact that such an ordinary story captures the viewer, Utzet declares: “In Our Town, Thornton Wilder describes the day-to-day life in the imaginary town of Grover’s Corners, deploying all the resources of epic theater to tell us a story devoid of conflicts that trap us in a way that is difficult to understand. Accompanying their lives, we realize how extraordinary the ordinary can be”. And he concludes: “We perceive the unattainable richness that is hidden behind any life and, unexpectedly, we end up confronting the great questions that both the great Greek philosophers and self-help manuals have tried to answer.”