It might be said that an outsider’s perspective is the best way to get to know a place ora group of people. In fact, it might even be true that someone from the margins of a group actually knows the group the best.

Such may well have been the case with Thornton Wilder, whose play, Our Town, is playing in a simple, yet effective production at Cygnet Theatre. Wilder, who was an established writer based in New York City, created as perfect a portrait of small town American life as one could imagine, just ashe also created as perfect an odeto married life as might be possible, and didboth in the same play.

Director Sean Murray may well have imagined how the outsider illumines the scene inshowcasing his revival of this continually-produced classic (it has been said that there is always a production of Our Town running somewhere in the world). He’s picked whatcould be seenas a ragtag bunch of performers to embody the citizens of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. Some are, on the surface at least, too old for their roles, while others are too young. There are several African Americans in the cast for a play set at a time when African Americans would not have lived in such a town. In addition, several of the primary relationships are cast interracially. One could call such a move “color-blind casting,” but I think Murray has a bit more up his sleeve. He’s created an “Our Town” that is quite close to the way Mr. Wilder intended, butis adding, “Some of these people don’t ‘fit’ in Our Town. Audience, what are you going to do with that?”

Further,Murray does not completely set the play in its period. The character Emily Gibbs (JoAnne Glover), for example, has a visible tattoo, and Shirley Pierson’s fine costume design focuses on plain but contemporary clothing. Before the play begins, the rear door to the stage sits open to the surrounding Old Town State Historic Park, arguably San Diego’s “Our Town.” The Stage Manager (Sylvia M’Lafi Thompson) closes the door before speaking her first lines, however, and the audience is thrust into an imaginary world created by chairs, ladders (set design by Andy Scrimger, property design by Bonnie L. Durben), and lights (by Michelle Caron).

And yet, no one in the cast makes a radical departure from what the play’s text demands. Presbyterian Church organist Simon Stimpson (Tom Stephenson) is Mr. Wilder’s clearest outsider (according to the script, he’s “not cut out for small town life”), but even he robustly tries to fit in. When he finally has his say, his truth is colored by his bitterness, and the audience doesn’t believe him. It is rather Mr. Webb (Dale Morris), the town’s newspaper editor, who has the clearest-eyed perspective, butevokes laughter from the audiencewhen he answers, “No, not much,” to a question about whether there is any culture in the town. To a degree, in Mr. Wilder’s vision, each character has it right,but also wrong at the same time. The audience gets to fill in the gaps, not just in the scenery and staging, but also in deciding what’s universal (a letter with a long address ending in “The Mind of God” is nevertheless delivered; the smell of bacon that permeates the room when Mrs. Webb fixes breakfast for Emily on her twelfth birthday) and what’s not.

In the central role of the Stage Manager, Thompson played her role as more of a storyteller than anything else. Sometimes, she came across a bit too much like a Sunday School teacher for my taste (and her “management” of the cast andstopping scenes in order to move the story along elicited reactions similar to those of a petulant Sunday School student). As George Gibbs, Francis Gercke was believable as a self-effacing high school baseball hero,but at times,his attempts to demonstrate George’s youthful enthusiasm fell flat. Gercke did deviate a bit from convention in George’s final scene, however, and the effect was heart-wrenching.

How audience members respond to Murray's challenge, "What are you going to do with that?" probably depends on how well each individual knows the play. If you’ve never seen a professional production of Our Town, you’ll find Cygnet’s to be most satisfying. If you’ve seen many productions of this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, you’ll feel as though you’re in good, though perhaps not revelatory, hands. The production runs through July 10 at the Old Town Theatre.

DOWNLOAD CAST AND CREDITS HERE