By Jennifer Mustoe
In the Margetts Theater, deep in the basement of BYU Provo‘s HFAC, A Wilder Night: Three One-Act Plays by Thorton Wilder gives audiences a wonderfully diverse representation of Wilder’s work in a black box environment that works so well. The three pieces display such diversity and remarkable acting, I walked out feeling filled with thoughts, emotions, and wonder.
The first two one-acts, The Long Christmas Dinner, and The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden play before intermission. Pullman Car Hiawatha (my personal favorite) plays after the break. All pieces are in a repertory, so each one-act uses the same remarkably talented actors in most plays (Camden has a smaller cast.) The cast is: Julia Rowley, Nathan Meyers, Olivia Ockey, Erik Rytting, Megan Alvarez, Woody Brook, Sariah Lyles, Melanie Berriman, Sadie Veach, Maximillian Wright, Andrew-Elijah Schindler, and Alison Taylor. Director Adam Houghton has given his players excellent direction and has implemented some truly inspired techniques and visuals that enhance these pieces with finesse that had me delighted. I felt like I was watching something alive, even though the stories moved along with such an ethereal quality, they felt completely fantastical–which I loved.
Christmas takes place at a long table and is a perfect piece to start this production. Actors come onstage and off, exiting the door of death when they die. Christmas is a mulit-generational piece and the actors “age” onstage with the use of make-up and hair changes ONSTAGE and fine acting technique. Actors enter the stage as a young person, but leave it as an ancient one. At first as they are “aging”, I was confused, so this is a great piece to start the production with. It seta the tone–Wilder can be somewhat otherwordly and time fluid. His focus on tight family relationships is something I adore, though, and each of these pieces have families and other relationships under a loving microscope.
The Happy Journey is a fun little piece that has the typical Wilder undertones of reality and sadness and deep family love. It reminded me of road trips I’ve taken as a kid, and that may be why it was my least favorite. I’m not a road trip lover. But Happy Journey is still delightful and the actors (Taylor, Ockey, Schindler, Veach, Wright, and Rowley) are remarkable in it.
My favorite piece, Pullman Car Hiawatha, uses all actors in multiple roles except Meyers as Stage Manager, and is funny, sweet, unusual, entertaining, and spiritual. I’m purposely not telling the plot because it needs to be seen to be understood and enjoyed. It is the most inventive and multi-layered and ending the program with this piece is a great structural choice. One thing I noticed is the sheer joy the actors had in all the pieces, but this one especially. It gave them the opportunity to really shine and use many different acting techniques with their several individual characters.
The production team do fantastic in every way. They are: Artistic Director Megan Sanborn Jones, Assistant Director Rebecca Stevens; Scenic Design by James Haycock; Lighting Design by Grant Porter; Costume Design by Jayna Louisa Fry; Makeup and Hair Design by Denyce Hawk; Sound Design by Matthew Kupferer; Dramaturgy by Hannah Gunson-McComb; Stage Manager Emma Pankratz; Original Music by J Alexander Bennett; and wonderful musicians Madeleine Riding (violin); Grace Snow and Maddie Hawkins (cello); Stephen Bade (clarinet); Bennet and Sam Abramson (piano). The live music adds a deep layer to this production that makes it even more
Because the show is a little different, I’m not sure children would appreciate it, but tweens that love Wilder or short, interesting pieces, and really anyone who loves theater needs to come see BYU Provo’s A Wilder Night: Three One-Act Plays. It is well worth the time. The Margetts is a little difficult to find, so if you go to the southern set of steps on the HFAC, go down and down and then right and you’ll find the nice young people at the door, who will instruct you where the theater is (down the hall). It’s general seating, but all seats are great. Doors open at 7:00 PM (and not before), curtain at 7:30 PM. Come watch these talented students put on a highly evocative program that you’ll be thinking about for days to come.
BYU Arts presents A Wilder Night: Three One-Act Plays by Thornton Wilder.
Brigham Young University, Harris Fine Arts Center, 800 E Campus Dr, Provo, UT 84602
November 13-15, 21-23, 2019 7:30 PM, matinee Nov 16, Nov 23, 2019 2:00 PM
Tickets: $12-16
Contact: 801-422-BYU1(2981)
BYU Arts Facebook Page
A Wilder Night: Three One-Act Plays Facebook Event
Hi, Jennifer! I read your review recently of Utah Shakespeare Theater’s production of Big River. I especially liked your observation of how Huck matures, compared to Tom Sawyer.
All the best!
Johnny