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Exuberant. Revelatory. Thrilling. Humble. Alive. Most delightfully of all, Funny. These are just the first words that spring to mind upon viewing Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s OT: Our Town. It’s a documentary about kids in Compton, California exploring Thornton Wilder’s Grover’s Corner, New Hampshire and what they discover in themselves along the way. It’s about the transformative power of art.
It’s about the putting a human face on a community as much maligned by pop culture stereotypes as it is by the actual demons of poverty, violence and hopelessness. It’s about survival. It’s about young people learning and creating.
| Catherine Borek and Karen Greene are English teachers at Compton’s infamous Dominguez High School. Theatre is not a priority at Dominguez to put it mildly. A play hasn’t been produced there in over twenty years. That Borek and Greene not only decide to do a play but to do Our Town might seem like madness at first but in fact, is a monumental act of courage and even wisdom. With kids in so-called “at-risk” communities the trick is to get them to buy in, to make them feel that they belong, that the whole world is the clay from which they can build their lives. “When you feel like you’re not accepted, it does something to you. It makes you feel like you’re not good enough,” offers Ebony Starr Norwood-Brown, the student playing the Stage Manager. By using Our Town as their maiden voyage into theatre, the kids are allowed to see themselves in an essential piece of Americana, and perhaps even come to see America inside themselves. |
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This is not just liberal hokum. Wilder always meant his play to be universal. As pointed out by Borek at one point, birth, falling in love, death are all universal themes that everyone has some experience with and a perspective on, kids in Compton are no different. The lack of props and set pieces, which is specifically delineated in Wilder’s script, lends itself to a cosmopolitan array of interpretations even if the nominal trappings of the play say otherwise. Still, when the kids saw the script and then, worse, watched the filmed play with Hal Holbrook as the Stage Manager, well, you don’t have to be DJ Quik to imagine their initial response.
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But the teachers and the kids persevere. The journey’s not easy. The stereotypes about Compton, as stereotypes often do, have some basis in reality. There are drive-bys and single parent households and the general lack of support by the school to overcome. The only thing the school seems to care about is basketball and indeed, Dominguez has a storied basketball program. The kids, in fact, expect very little from the school even before this play. They only have each other and the will of their two teachers, to see them through. It’s enough but just barely. And the surprise and relief when the project is not only completed but succeeds is palpable. |
Through the entire six week saga, Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s camera is there as witness. The rehearsal process is only part of the story. The camera also follows the cast to their home to capture revealing moments of their private lives. After all, above everything else, getting to know these students is what sells this movie. Ebony, Chris, Jackie, Archy, Jose – all of the kids in the movie -- are bright, forthright, charming and articulate. You root for them. It’s easy to see what Borek is talking about when she mentions that the year before, reading Romeo and Juliet “personalities emerged” and to see why she would be inspired to tap into that wellspring further. The kids are frank about the realities of their own lives in a way that’s without agenda or self-pity. They’re also pretty open about their attitudes towards the play. “I don’t know any family like that. I never knew any family like that. I mean, who talks like that? Where do they get this stuff?”, wonders the charismatic Archie. This is only one of the often hilarious misgivings the kids have about this production and what relevance it could have on their lives.
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