4/24/08

"Our Town" connects Arlington students to town's heritage

When Scott Moberly, Arlington High School’s drama teacher, first considered mounting a production of  “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder he immediately began to look for the connections between the play and Arlington. He wanted to find out more about the area’s original settlers and their impact on today’s generation to make the text more relevant to his students.

For decades after its founding more than 100 years ago, Arlington was a logging and farming community. Like many small agricultural towns, it has since struggled with its identity.

Moberly was moved by the words of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, “An archeologist's eyes combine the view of the telescope and the view of the microscope. He reconstructs the very distant with the help of the very small.”

Moberly realized that his students had much to learn about small town life. Who better to assist in that education than the native-born citizens of Arlington?

The show’s cast members met some of the descendants of the original settlers at the cemetery, where they took tours of family plots. The “hosts” elaborated on the history of their own families, but also discussed their experiences growing up in a small town.

Student Janelle Hudon, who has some of the most poignant lines in the play as Emily Webb, asked long-time resident Ruth Yost about her relationship with her parents. “My character has a conversation with her mother about boys. Did you talk to your mother about boys?”

Yost was eager to compare the differences between the way teens speak with their parents now and the way it was when she was young. Soon, the two were deep in conversation and it seemed as if Yost was back in high school again, chatting with a girlfriend.

Next the students took a trip to the Stillaguamish Pioneer Museum. Wilder wrote “Our Town” so that many of the objects on stage are pantomimed. The problem was that the students had no idea how to preserve green beans, cut wood, or cut biscuits by hand. Through the generosity of museum volunteers, the students were able to view real artifacts from Arlington during the time of the play in order to mimic the proper gestures on stage.

 “Our Town” runs Friday and Saturday, April 25 and 26, May 2 and 3 at 7:30 p.m. at the Byrnes Performing Arts Center, 18821 Crown Ridge Boulevard in Arlington. Tickets are available online at www.byrnesperformingarts.org (online ticket purchase charge of $2 each) and locally at Flowers by George or Arlington Copy, Mail and More. Adult admission is $10, while students and Golden Eagle Club Members pay $6. A limited number of tickets will be available at the door.