A set of hanging light bulbs and simple tables became a small town. And audience members became wedding guests.

The Brookline High School Drama Society captured the beauty of the everyday in their production of Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play Our Town. Directed by Summer Williams, the production ran from March 6 to March 10.

The story is set in the early 1900s. The stage manager (senior Jake Gonnella) guides the audience through the play, pausing and fast forwarding through time. The story follows two families, the Gibbs and the Webbs, as their kids grow up and fall in love.

Shown in the Black Box, the play directly involved the audience in the action. The actors would often lock eyes with audience members, as if speaking to them directly, or move to sit among them. Select audience members were even given questions to ask. The result was a uniquely intimate and interactive theater experience.

When Emily Webb (sophomore Taylor James) and George Gibbs (sophomore Sean McDonough) got married, everybody had to get up and go down to the Roberts-Dubbs Auditorium, where they were greeted by a host asking if they wanted to sit on the bride’s side or the groom’s side. It felt as if we had made the journey with these families; we were guests at the wedding, not impartial observers.

We fast forward a few years and many people have died. The lights are low, and the chairs are arranged like tombstones in a cemetery. There are actors sitting on some of the chairs while audience members sit on others. Emily, who died in labor, is witnessing her own funeral. When George comes by, many audience members are brought to tears.

Because the audience took part in the play, we felt like we knew the characters personally, making it even harder to watch the last act.

Emily then watched a day in her past from the outside and realized how quickly life goes by, and the audience and actor became even more alike—observers who could look, but not touch.

“It goes so fast, we don’t even have time to look at one another,” Emily said.

Because the play transitioned immediately from the wedding to the funeral, it emphasized how quickly time passes.  And because we were all still focused on the joy of the wedding when the funeral scene started, it reminded us that you have to enjoy the time you have, especially the happy times, because you never know how long they will last.

The play brought me to think about how quickly my life is going by. I found myself wishing to go back in the play to when the kids were young and rushing off to school, a thing that at the time had seemed mundane. That scene now seemed like a happy time spent with the family. I was clinging on to that small moment in time just like Emily was.

Seeing the play reminded us all to be thankful for everything in life, even the everyday things.

Rebecca Segal can be contacted at [email protected].