Theatre review: Our Town at Swansea Grand 

Molly Stubbs

Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, 1901. The residents of this very average locale, population 2,642 as of the birth of twins this morning, awake to another ordinary day of school, pruning heliotropes, editing the local newspaper, treating sick townsfolk, policing the streets, and practicing their hymns.

Thus begins Thorton Wilder’s classic play, Our Town. Moving through its remaining acts, set in 1904 and 1913, high school progresses, horses fall out of fashion, and a romance forms.

Wilder’s theatrical sensibilities, largely reflective of those at the time of Our Town’s writing in the late 1930s, eschew the gritty tension of a murder mystery or the adrenal excitement of an action adventure. But even in such a place as Grover’s Corners, the mundanity of birth, marriage, death and existential revelation lingers when whispered over twelve years.

Perhaps it is this ability to stick in the memory that convinced the Welsh National Theatre to select the play as its inaugural showing.

The WNT is Michael Sheen’s self-funded and much-anticipated answer to the funding-cut-caused closure of the National Theatre Wales in 2024. With director Francesca Goodridge and creative associate Russell T. Davies at the helm, it’s only right that Sheen takes the leading role of our chaperone through this little New Hampshire hamlet, and the twisting, happy though often short lives of its locals.

The play has very little by way of a fourth wall, and Sheen’s jolly, besuited Stage Manager, as he is known in the script, provides the warmest of welcomes to a story of life’s fleeting complexities. Having Sheen directly address the audience is also a cheeky but easily lovable workaround to the fact that he is likely the main reason many people will see the show. 

There are other stars here whose light travels effortlessly into the auditorium. George Gibbs (Peter Devlin) is sweet without being sickly, containing within his character an emotionally fraught 16-year-old and a capable young man on the cusp of adulthood, complemented by Yasemine Özdemir’s Emily.

Gareth Snook, though lower down in the cast list and used sparingly, is attuned to the script’s subtlety and employs it in his portrayals of various seemingly unimportant characters to great effect.

Some of the cast do tend to bray rather than bellow in hammed-up Welsh accents, while others, operating in well-worn territory, are in their eye-catching element while never truly challenging themselves.

Our Town’s principal charm is undoubtedly in its visuals. The costuming by Hayley Grindle is competent, with worn boots, colourful blouses and striped braces generating a sense of place bested only by her set. 

The audience is greeted by a pale-purple twilight projection, fronted with reeds blustering in an evening wind. Chairs, ladders, and wooden planks dot the stage, life’s trip hazards. They become, through quick and clacking choreography, the doors of a home or store, the tracks of a railroad, the cross of a church, the gravestones of townsfolk. 

Jess Williams’ movement direction plays a large part in setting WNT’s Our Town apart from other interpretations. Though the sporadic fractures into dancing, furniture throwing, ladder climbing and Sheen spinning are largely unnecessary, they provide a magnetic momentum, compelling the audience to look upon and appreciate the ensemble as a whole.

Of particular note is the foray into Rebecca Gibbs’ (Rebecca Killick) childlike dream world, the stage lit up like a sky full of stars as she is lifted to the heavens on the shoulders of her co-stars. 

Such lighting direction by Ryan Joseph Stafford, be it the silver of a moonlit night, the quiet grey after a torrential downpour, or the warmth of a rowdy wedding feast, indeed provides this cake’s proverbial icing. Sound by Dyfan Jones, a tinkling motif, a distant train horn, choral interludes included solely to show off those Welsh vocal talents, tops it all off with a cherry.

But Our Town is in the tricky position of being the highly publicised WNT’s highly publicised debut. Separate to the work of established Welsh arts organisations, it is difficult to review the performance without considering whether it achieves the stated aims of the company that selected and staged it, and as such ending up reviewing said company itself. 

Sheen, also serving as WNT’s artistic director, stated that “Classics reimagined through a Welsh lens” will be a staple of their roster, albeit lesser to their intention to take domestic Welsh work to the world.

He continued: “Our Town is a play about life, love and community. That’s what matters to us in Wales; that’s what matters to me.”

But aside from the characters’ aforementioned Welsh accents, Main Street being dubbed ‘Stryd Fawr’, and a tenuous link to Under Milk Wood, it doesn’t appear many meaningful changes were made to Thorton Wilder’s original work. And why should there be change, the argument goes. We know, after all, that Our Town is a ‘good’ play because it is still being performed almost eighty years after its 1938 premiere.

But left behind is the slightly uncomfortable impression that the WNT version is, short of being lazy, unable to overcome mere goodness. While the motions are timeless, enjoyable and undoubtedly attractive, they are being gone through as on many a stage before. 

Of course, this detraction can be largely put to an understandable desire for safety, a tentative self-awareness, on part of the company. Stepping out into the light as a new arts organisation requires delicate treading, even with a Hollywood star at the helm.

Our town is beloved enough to draw culture nuts but not unconventional enough to turn away those largely on the fence about this theatre lark. Its ensemble requirement provides space for established names to draw bums to seats whilst leaving room for newer names to cut their teeth on not-particularly-demanding material. While slightly high and mighty in its final act, the play says very little that viewers will disagree with, does not divide in its messaging, does not take any turn, narrative or thematic, that is new or niche.

It is by no means a cowardly choice, but it is rarely brave. 

Hope, as is its nature, focuses on the future. The difficult debut is over (or will be when Our Town is done touring), and with the goodwill from a harmless staging of a dependable classic under their belts, one waits eagerly for the WNT’s sophomore showing — Gary Owen’s ‘Owain and Henry’.

Though Owen is far from a breakout Welsh writer, the story of Owain Glyndwr’s battle with King Henry IV for Welsh freedom is set to feel much more at home. One also desires more space for newbie thespians to steal the spotlight in the ambitious undertaking. And perhaps some blazing pyrotechnics, full-frontal nudity and an open call for political violence. Something dangerous that might, horror of horrors, inspire dislike beyond dissatisfaction. Something… more. 

Our Town is currently playing at Swansea Grand theatre before it embarks on a tour to Llandudno, Mold, and Kingston-upon-Thames. More information and tickets are available here.