by James O’Barr
When Battleground Productions opens its new play on Thursday, September 5, it will be in a space that is unusual, even for a city with a wild variety of performance venues. Our House, written by award-winning playwright, filmmaker, theatre critic, and multi-tasking man of stage and page John Longenbaugh, is about the various and variously-related residents of a small house in southeast Olympia from 1934 until … just now. It was inspired, we are told, by Thornton Wilder’s treasured masterwork, Our Town. Wilder described his play as “an attempt to find a value above all price for the smallest events in our life, against the largest dimensions of time and place.” According to the press release, Our House “explores one tiny piece of this world in time and space … investigating history, love, death, and really good cocktails.” More about those cocktails later.
The most remarked-upon feature of Wilder’s play is the setting—in a theatre, yes, but on a virtually empty stage, with little-to-no scenery or props. The setting of Our House, the stage, is an actual small house in which the story and the action take place. It’s located on the edge of a cemetery, in what was still country and farmland when the play begins in 1934 and Olympia had a population of just over 11,000 people.
The audience, according to the press release, will be limited to 14 people. According to Longenbaugh, “While the first and third acts take place outside, with the audience looking on in the front and the back yards, the second act happens in the living room, and 14 people will constitute, well, a full house. Also, the living room will have a full bar, the ticket price includes tasty snacks and, for those who indulge, craft cocktails, and the small audience will make the intimacy we want for Our House possible.”
The show, which runs about two hours, is co-directed by Longenbaugh and Bryan Willis. Willis is a playwright and theatre activist whose work has been seen and heard both locally (Harlequin, Washington Center for the Performing Arts, etc.) and beyond (Seattle Rep, New York Theatre Workshop, BBC Radio, etc. etc.) The cast, in multiple roles, includes noted Northwest actors Mathaeus Andersen, Meghan Goodman, Jesse Morrow, and Mark Waldstein.
WHAT
Our House: An Evening in Three Acts
WHERE
A house in southeast Olympia
WHEN
Thursdays through Sundays, 7:30 pm, September 5-22
This show has been extended through Sunday, Sept. 29.
HOW MUCH
$35 (includes snacks and a drink ticket), available at Brown Paper Tickets: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/6363567
LEARN MORE
https://battlegroundproductions.org/our-house-a-new-immersive-play/
CONTACT US
info@battlegroundproductions.org