Our Town

Our Town is a play by Thornton Wilder (1897-1975)[1] .

The original text

An immensely popular play about life in a small town, one of the most frequently staged American plays, it opened on January 22, 1938 at the McCarter Theater, Princeton, New Jersey, produced and directed by Jed Harris. The play moved to New York, where it opened at the Henry Miller Theater on February 4, 1938. It won Wilder the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Our Town is a 1938 metatheatrical three-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play tells the story of the fictional American small town of Grover's Corners between 1901 and 1913 through the everyday lives of its citizens.

Throughout, Wilder uses metatheatrical devices, setting the play in the actual theatre where it is being performed. The main character is the stage manager of the theatre who directly addresses the audience, brings in guest lecturers, fields questions from the audience, and fills in playing some of the roles. The play is performed without a set on a mostly bare stage. With a few exceptions, the actors mime actions without the use of props.

Our Town was first performed at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey in 1938.[1] It later went on to success on Broadway and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It remains popular today and revivals are frequent.

Translations and adaptations

Besides two direct translations in Afrikaans, the play has was also transferred to a South African setting and adapted for a South African audiences by Robert Mohr, as the bilingual (English/Afrikaans]] play Our Town/Ons Dorp.

Direct translations

Translated into Afrikaans by Ulrich Stark with the title Ons Dorp, the text published by DALRO in 1970.

Translated into Afrikaans in 1976 by Roelf Laubscher, also with the title Ons Dorp.

Our Town/Ons Dorp a bilingual South African adaptation

Robert Mohr (1925-1984) had met Thornton Wilder in New England in the late 1950s, and the playwright gave him his personal permission to adapt the play as a bilingual (English and Afrikaans) piece, and setting it in the Western Cape. The play was given a suitably bilingual title, Our Town/Ons Dorp and was first performed in this format under Mohr's direction at the University of Stellenbosch in 1959.

Performance history in South Africa

1945: Produced by the Johannesburg Reps, directed by Taubie Kushlick with Enid Grünewald and others.

1947: Presented by the University of Cape Town Speech-Training Department, directed by Joyce Burch in the Little Theatre in March, with a cast that included Michael Watermeyer, Zea Lurie, Ashné Kretzmar and Joyce Pienaar.

1951: Ons Dorp was presented by K.A.T. in the Labia Theatre in Cape Town, opening 25 September, directed by Hermien Dommisse starring Enone van den Bergh. The name of the translator in not known, but may possibly have been Dommisse herself.

1959: Robert Mohr produced and directed Our Town/Ons Dorp, his own bilingual adaptation of Wilder's play, for the University of Stellenbosch's Arena '59. The cast consisted of André Walters, Emile Aucamp, Roelf Laubscher, Esther van Ryswyk, Marie Smit, Ian Ferguson, Melanie Erasmus, Marcel Frank, Elma Marais, Johan de Plessis, Albert Coetser, Wenda Oosthuizen, Isabel Combrink, Jennifer Alt, Johan Conradie, Charlotte Pretorius, Ernst Eloff, Irma Braasch, Elsabé Bonthuys, Damaris Loubser.

1960: Our Town performed by NTO in 1960, featuring André Huguenet.

1976: Our Town presented by PACT at the Alexander Theatre, directed by John Hussey with Danny Keogh, Diane Wilson and Michael McCabe

1976: Our Town/Ons Dorp presented by PACOFS at the Bloemfontein Civic Theatre, directed by Jannie Gildenhuys, with Pierre Knoesen, Margi Lewis and others.

1977: The Port Elizabeth Shakespearean Festival Young 'uns presented Our Town at the Port Elizabeth Opera House on July 3 & 4, 1977. A Themi Ventura Production. Themi Venturas (Producer and Narrator), Hercules Pitsiladis (Doc Gibbs), William O'Driscoll (Joe Crowell). Gary Carter (Howie Newsome), Edna Wright, (Mrs Gibbs), Lorraine Young (Mrs Webb), Patrick Scott (George Gibbs), Julie Belgrove (Rebecca Gibbs), Martina Riebol, (Emily Webb), Mauro Putigna (Wally Webb), Anthony Mundell (Simon Stimson), Emmanuel Fokos (Constable Warren), Gary Carter (Professor Willard), Barry Peart (Mr Webb), Janis Harvey (Mrs Soames), Theo Rijs (Si Crowell), Robert Watkins (Sam Craig), William O'Driscoll (Joe Stoddard), Anthony Mundell, Robert Watkins (Baseball Players), Alexia Michaelides, Amber Cummins, Nadia Putigna, Leigh Ann Shamley, Gene Young, Carol Anne Kelleher (Ladies).

1985: A production of Our Town/Ons Dorp was presented at the Standard Bank National Schools' Festival, Grahamstown, directed by Trevor Hicks.

1988: A production of Our Town/Ons Dorp was presented by Universiteitsteater Stellenbosch in May, as a tribute to Mohr after his death (in 1984). Directed by Esther van Ryswyk, with Limpie Basson, Marie de Kock and Emile Aucamp - who had all been involved in the 1959 production. Other cast members were Noël Roos, Marga van Rooy, Marchand de Kok, and various students.

Sources

South African Opinion, 4(2):19, 1947.

Supplement to Die Burger, 22 September 1951.

Our Town Theatre programme, 1977.

Tucker, 1997. 26, 336.

Arena '59 theatre programme 1959.

UTS Theatre programme, 1988.

PACOFS Drama 25 Years, 1963-1988.

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