Astin and Co. return with Wilder's classic Our Town

If you've spent even one second in the Arts and Science orbit at Hopkins, chances are that you've heard of the artist in residence at the Writing Seminars Department: actor John Astin of The Addams Family television fame. Armed with a natural flair and experience with 50 years on the drama and film track, Astin teaches the nuts and bolts of acting, directing and stage management to eager students. He has also created the Hopkins Studio Players to revive theatre in the undergraduate community.

If you haven't heard of the Theatre Hopkins, you've definitely walked by it at any rate, nested in the Merrick Barn, near the power-plant side street. Created way back by a Hopkins English professor in 1921 to give the theatre enthusiasts of the Baltimore community a venue on campus, Theatre Hopkins has showcased dramatic gems ranging from standard Shakespeare and Moliere satires to modern classics like Death of a Salesman and Marvin's Room. What you haven't heard, perhaps, is that the two are coming together in a electrifying new collaboration: to stage Our Town, Thornton Wilder's stirring, bittersweet embroidery of love and loss in a small town, and the truth about our human condition.

Directed by Astin himself and featuring a cast composed of seasoned Theatre Hopkins veterans who are normally community actors, and student actors, the production gives us a taste of Astin's ambitions for drama on Hopkins. Certainly, the fact that Our Town will start its run in the BMA Auditorium for its opening weekend is a fairly good indicator of the scale of his vision.

This play holds a special place in Astin's heart because he first experienced it when he was a student himself. "I remember when I first saw it," he says, "At that point in life I had seen less than a half dozen plays and I had never considered acting. In two and a half hours it changed my outlook on life. I remember thinking, "What a medium.'"

Astin has done a lot on this campus to inspire students to fall in love with the medium he has made his life's work and this play is just another example. "The object is to train the [student] actors here by having them work with professional actors and directors," explains Valerie Astin, Astin's wife, "This production is particularly exciting because this is the first time the BMA and the Hopkins Studio Players are collaborating together," she says. "We're using the venue that we're using to introduce [the students] to the wider community." Press releases and other forms of publicity have advertised the play around to theater-lovers around Baltimore, so expect to see a more appreciative audience than the kind that usually ambles in to watch student plays.

Hopkins students Loren Dunn and Kateri Chambers shine in the two main roles in Our Town: the small town lovers George Gibbs and Emily Webb. "In the show, we're young and in love and really shy about it," says Dunn of the couple at the heart of the play, "and the big scene is when we finally know we're in love."

But if you want to be precise, you can't really pinpoint this or that character as the main lead: Wilder creates a delicate social web that gently changes shape over the seasons as people are born and then step over into the community of the dead.

These characters come close to your heart by the little conflicts and problems that layer to create the unique taste of life at Grover's Corners. "For instance, my mother [Mrs. Gibbs] wants to go to Europe but has never really left the country," comments Dunn. "Then there's the [really funny] scene where I get stuck with Emily's father, who's sitting with a cup of coffee and really isn't in the mood for talking with the guy interested in his daughter."

Nevertheless, don't go expecting the plain-as-bread, sweet-as-molasses atmosphere of the small town of Mayberry, where the play is set.?Threads of farce needle their way through some of the small town scenes, adding a masterful pinch of spice to the play. "I think Wilder would have loved The Simpsons," laughs Suzanne Pratt, Director of Theatre Hopkins. "You can tell by the keen perspective he has on American attitudes."

But it's the universal message of human loss and meaning composed by this American master dramatist that is truly gripping. ?The passion, the futility, the beauty and briefness of life come out in this play, as the small town folk in their small town dialects, ask the great question of universal human experience.? "[T]here are some things we all know but we don't take "em out and look at "em very often. We all know that something is eternal," ... but what is that something? If you visit Our Town, maybe you'll get some leads.

Keep an eye cocked for the graveyard conversations at the end. Astin also plays the role of the stage manager, the odd figure who does the job of a traditional Greek chorus and goes a few leagues ahead. Sure, he ambles to the front of the stage at every act and with a string of lovely, well chosen words, creates the scene, sets the mood, tells the time and passage of events, but that's not all; he weaves through the play with a weird nonchalance, creating conversations between the audience and small town folk, or between dead people in the cemetery, "real sociable-like."

Of course, that's more reason for coming to the play: watching a quirky character played to the hilt by the actor who has cut his teeth on one of TV's signature roles of quirkiness. Having sat at a run-through, I can attest not only to the quality of Astin's acting, but also to the utter passion he throws in his directing. "Make her realize that you're loving her, now, here, here at this moment," he exclaims, trying to spur just the right pitch of intensity in the actress who plays a dead character visiting the living for a day. Exhausted after watching 30 minutes of the fiery Astin stalking and gesturing across the stage, I realized exactly how good the hands holding the reins were. No one has any reason to expect anything less than a stellar performance when curtains rise on opening night.

My verdict: take a ticket, don your top hat or bonnet and visit the folks at Our Town, when it rolls in the BMA Auditorium this weekend.

Our Town will be performed Fri, Oct. 17h and Sat, Oct. 18th at 8pm at the BMA and Fridays and Saturdays for the next three weekends at Merrick Barn For the BMA show, either call or visit the BMA for tickets, $5.