I only wish I had seen this wonderful production of “Our Town,” the classic American play by Thornton Wilder, before closing night so that I could have recommended it in time for people to go see it.
It was produced by Strawberry Theatre Workshop, a small, award-winning Seattle theatre company now based in the brand-new arts space on Capitol Hill called 12th Avenue Arts. Almost every one of their recent productions I have seen, including the brilliant “Breaking the Code,” about Alan Turing, has been excellent.
It is no wonder that this Pulitzer Prize winning play, written almost 70 years ago by Wilder, is still one of the most performed plays in America. Its examination of ordinary lives is poignant and still resonates today.
And Wilder’s “form of expressionism that demanded an audience collaborate in the creation of the story without the aid of production elements of any kind” is supremely effective in Strawshop’s modern telling of this American classic.
