STAGE MANAGER•ステージマネージャー
Happy New Year!!
This is the first blog post for Welcome to Our Town in 2021!!
This is the year that Nagoya Players finally perform, Our Town! We are continuing on with preparation and rehearsals. And we’re ready to have a lively and dynamic 2021!!
The theme of the blog today is…STAGE MANAGER!! He manages Our Town on stage of course…but have you ever met a character like STAGE MANAGER who expresses what will happen next or who he/she is on stage??
Do you feel STAGE MANAGER is mysterious or benevolent??
In this blog I will focus on the importance of STAGE MANAGER in Our Town.
First of all, it should be noted that Our Town is said to be a groundbreaking theatre production for the successful and skillful use of three elements stated below. The premiere of Our Town on February 4th, 1938 was remarkable for combining these three innovative techniques:
- Breaking the Fourth Wall
- Pantomine
- Space-scale Point of View and Time-Skipping
Ever since Our Town’s premiere eighty-three years ago, these three elements have been used repeatedly by many contemporary theatre directors and have become staple techniques.
STAGE MANAGER takes the role of a narrator but also as a guide who shows the audience objectively how the above mentioned elements work on stage. He immerses you in the world of Our Town.
When reading the script you might discover some new and deep essence of the world of Our Town when you concentrate on STAGE MANAGER’s parts. STAGE MANAGER always appears when one or more of the above mentioned elements are used on stage. The STAGE MANAGER is especially crucial when it comes to Space-scale Point of View and Time-Skipping. I highly recommend that you focus on what STAGE MANAGER says and does in these moments!!
By the way, what was mainstream theatre performance like before Our Town?
Before the 20th century, in general, the actions and experiences of the main character were portrayed in a designated time-period and told in first or third-person narrative. It was typical that the story’s subject matter be expressed linearly and in singularity.
However, Thornton Wilder was enthusiastic about expressing the actions and experiences of multiple characters — not just the main character. He wrote about this approach in the Forward to The Three Plays published by Harper Collins Publishers L.L.C. in 1957.
Thornton Wilder believed that every human being has his/her own ordinary life, love and marriage, and all these things should be expressed on stage as their own reality. He had a strong desire for trying to express the multiplicity of reality on stage.
When reading the original script the complexity of each scene can be felt. One of the biggest reasons for this is the way the world of Our Town is expressed on stage. As I mentioned above, Thornton Wilder was especially focused on creating a multi-layered world, which means the consequences of each action, experience and thought in each character resonates in multiple ways. To put it all together, he effectively uses STAGE MANAGER to tie these multiple story-threads into a complete narrative.
At the time Our Town was written using a character from the storyworld as a narrator was unheard of. It completely broke the Fourth Wall between the performers on stage and the audience.
The character of STAGE MANAGER is fascinating and truly a first of its kind. I’m really looking forward to seeing how Nagoya Players will create their ambitious expression of the world of Our Town!! Please read the script yourself and imagine how the stage is going to be!!
And please take care of yourself and see you next time on this Blog!!
Atsumi Yamamoto
Content & Outreach, Nagoya Players
Shawn Mahler administrator
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