Live-Blogging the "Our Town" Read-through! Part Two

12:01 - The designer presentations continue. The assistant costume designer passes around sketches of the costumes. Lots of white dresses for the first two acts, darker colors for the third.

Schwimmer: What’s Emily’s costume going to look like?”

“The skirt’ll be made of ombre… do you know what that is?”

All of us stare blankly.

Schwimmer: No.

The silence stretches uncomfortably.

Schwimmer: Unless you mean a Latino male.

The whole room kind of loses it.

Anna: THAT’S why this play is so expensive!

12:16 - Kevin O’Donnell, the sound designer, is up next. Echoing Anna and Jessica, he talks about the time moving not just linearly, but vertically—our current moments intersect with the ripples of what will come. “I’m sitting here, yet I’m already dead—as that’s what my fate holds.”

We all shuffle uncomfortably.

12:23 - Ten minute break. There are still some cookies left. Woo!

I pass Alex Blunt, the production manager, who is staring at the pastel set rendering.

“John Musial, is that a toilet hanging from the ceiling?”

12:35 - The actors start to bring up questions about the “logic of the space.” Uh-oh.

Catlin asks about dialects. There won’t be any dialects in the show, answers Anna, but one should be aware of the “limits of language in the past, but the continuity of emotion.” Anna further explains her concept of the space, emphasizing the importance of conjuring up the audience’s own memories—to “make the audience remember what it’s like.” Yet without being self-referential! Nor an indictment about how one SHOULD be feeling!

This is all sounding a touch tricky, though I suddenly recall the designer presentations. Anna and Jessica DID just get everyone to cheerfully accept walking under precariously hung pianos, bathtubs, and kitchen tables for two months. If they can lead the actors there, they can surely lead them many places.

12:54 The read-through begins. Everyone shuffles around to be nearer to their scene partner. I’m now pressing my knees against the back of Christine Mary Dunford. This isn’t awkward at all.

Joey Slotnick begins.

“In this play, you will see Mr. Catlin, Mr. Cox, Ms. Dunford, Ms. Eason, Mr. Fox, Mr. Kersner, Ms. Lamson, Mr. Schwimmer, Ms. Stillman, Ms. Walsh, Mr. White…” Here, he glances at Kevin Douglas, the only one not mentioned. “And many others.”
We all laugh, hesitating to stop, knowing what’s to come.

2:05 - The next notable laughter is here—more of a quiet, rueful outburst—at Joey’s line “…and a number of people who thought they were quite young and spry have noticed that they can’t bound up a flight of stairs like they used to, without their heart fluttering a little.”

Everyone settles down quickly, watching.

2:45 - End of the read-through. Several actors reached for a tissue, and many others seemed have suddenly come down with a head cold.

Why does everyone cry at the end of “Our Town”? Is it that people realize that there isn’t really any difference at all between Grovers Corners and their own communities? And that they will all ultimately be separated from their community by death?

Or is it that they are not privy to such a support system at all (a la Simon Stimson, the town drunk/choirmaster)?

Or is it something else entirely?

Thoughts?