Earlier this summer, on Flag Day, Shaker Bridge Theatre staged a reading of Heidi Schreck’s “What the Constitution Means to Me.” In it, Schreck, played by Andover, Vt. actor Susan Haefner, toggled between performing as her adult self and the 15-year-old version of her who participated in debate competitions about America’s founding document.
At the end of the show, Haefner, speaking as herself, debated Kaitlynn Cherry, an international relations student at Boston University, about whether the Constitution should be abolished, given the limitations it places on women and immigrants. Ushers passed out pocket Constitutions and an audience member was asked to pick the winner of the debate. The wall between performers and audience had dissolved and the show had become a vehicle for political discussion.
Pulling down the fourth wall in “What the Constitution Means to Me” is a tenet of metatheater, a type of theater that uses dramatic and stylistic techniques to highlight a play’s artifice. Shaker Bridge’s reading is just one of a number of metatheater plays that have been staged in the Upper Valley in the past year and a half.
The British comedy “The Play That Goes Wrong,” about a production of a murder mystery play that goes horribly awry, which Northern Stage put on in March 2024, is one, as well as “Something Rotten!,” a musical about a pair of brothers and amateur playwrights who become locked in competition with William Shakespeare (who aptly wrote that “All the world’s a stage”) that went up at We the People Theatre soon after. Last spring, We the People also produced “A Man of No Importance,” a musical about an oddball theater troupe and their earnest leader who’s enamored with the work of Oscar Wilde.
Still other plays, such as Chandler Center for the Arts’ production of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” last winter implicate the audience by dissolving the fourth wall.
The prevalence of metatheater speaks to the robust nature of the Upper Valley’s theater scene as well as the intellect and enthusiasm of its practitioners and audiences. But such a self-reflexive, cerebral form of theater also runs the risk of alienating those who aren’t in the know.
The way Dartmouth professor Peter Hackett sees it, theater about theater appeals to audiences because it allows them a peek behind the curtain at what goes into pulling off a show.
“Audiences really want to know more about how the magic is created, because it does seem so magical I think,” he said in an interview.
While a goal of most productions is to hide the nuts and bolts that go into making it work, plays like “The Play That Goes Wrong,” which Hackett directed at Northern Stage last year, allow audiences a look under the hood, albeit in a way that is still carefully orchestrated.
“You see the mistakes, and I think people like to see the mistakes…There’s something fascinating about it,” said Richard Waterhouse, who directed We the People’s “Something Rotten!”
Waterhouse also noted that, even if you’ve never participated in theater, almost everyone can relate to the experience of banding together around a shared goal, especially when, despite best laid plans, things go awry.
In “The Play That Goes Wrong,” for instance, the fictional Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society is plagued by a deluge of technical mishaps during their performance of “The Murder at Haversham Manor.”
The characters are “trying so hard to make it go well, just as in life there are lots of things we can’t control, and things often don’t go the way we want them to, and that’s something everyone can identify with,” Hackett said.
But shows that offer a glance behind the scenes of the theater world aren’t just satisfying for audiences, they also appeal to those who make them.
The years following a decline in Broadway’s popularity gave birth to a number of shows that celebrated life on the stage including “A Chorus Line,” “The Dresser,” and, perhaps most on the nose, David Mamet’s “A Life in the Theatre.”
Waterhouse noted that playwrights who make shows about theater are simply adhering to the old adage: “Write what you know.”
When directing a play about theater, “you’re directing a story that’s about your life, in a way,” Waterhouse said.
It makes sense then that in an area as saturated with community theater as the Upper Valley, the plays about making theater are about amateur troupes.
When We the People’s actors, who were professional and non-professional, got together to play the mismatched theater ensemble in “A Man of No Importance,” for example, they were also paying homage to their own company.
For Waterhouse, who starred as Alfie Byrne, community theater has “a sacred quality, like going to church. Not that it’s solemn but you’re joining for a common purpose, and it feels very much like a gathering of your energies and spirits and focus.”
In “Our Town” Wilder employs a number of techniques to alert viewers that the play is a contrived spectacle, such as including a narrator, named the Stage Manager, who often speaks directly to the audience.
A note in the script at the beginning of Act II states that the Stage Manager watches the audience while they find their seats at the end of intermission. Another, at the beginning of Act III, says that “During the intermission the audience has seen the stagehands arrange the stage.”
The play is less a meta-commentary about making theater than it is about life in rural communities like the fictional New Hampshire town of Grover’s Corners, or Randolph, where Chandler’s version was staged.
The interspersing of covers of Noah Kahan songs, which audiences were encouraged to sing along with, and the fact that most of the actors hailed from Randolph, only emphasized the local connection.
Quechee director Amanda Rafuse said that plays like “Our Town” and “A Man of No Importance” are also responding to an urge for solidarity on the local level in the face of a fractured political landscape. “There’s a real thirst for community and collaboration,” she said.
Metatheater has a long history of being used to foster political awareness. The most obvious instance is probably 20th century German playwright Bertolt Brecht’s epic theater, which employs a number of theatrical and narrative devices that prevent audiences from being lulled into the story and encourages them to contend with their present reality.
A more recent example is Kimberly Belflower’s “John Proctor Is the Villain,” which made its Broadway debut earlier this year. Set in rural Georgia in 2018, the play follows a group of high school girls’ study of “The Crucible” under the guidance of their English teacher, Mr. Smith. While he advocates for the innocence of “Crucible” protagonist John Proctor, Mr. Smith’s own nefarious deeds soon come to light as Arthur Miller’s play is reevaluated against the backdrop of the peak of the #MeToo movement.
But maybe more than anything, the recent uptick in metatheater reveals something about the makeup of Upper Valley audiences, that is that they’re well-educated, with enough disposable income to consume a lot of theater and take on conceptual material.
“I think that everyone who attends theater in the Upper Valley is an expert because they see so much,” said Sharon Groblicki, a performing arts teacher at Barnard Academy with a long history of directing in the Upper Valley.
It creates somewhat of a circular relationship: people who love the theater and their community are playing characters who love the theater and their community for audiences who feel the same.
I think back to the debate at the end of “What the Constitution Means to Me.” There was the illusion of a real forum, of performers and audience members working ideas out in real time, but looking around the theater, I suspect most of us would have voted the same way.
Upper Valley World Tour
White River Junction’s DJ Suave Sweatstain and DJ GenderEnder, of Lebanon, are embarking on a mini tour across the Upper Valley. The next show is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. this Friday at the South Royalton Green. More information about upcoming shows, one of which is scheduled for Christmas Day in 2094, can be found on the DJs’ Instagram pages @chicoeastridge and @_genderender_.
Bad Corn?
On Saturday, Vermont-based Afro-Latin band Mal Maïz is slated to bring their mix of Caribbean, cumbia, folk and reggae rhythms to 139 Star Mountain Rd in Sharon. The show starts at 6 p.m., but concertgoers should come early and bring their own picnic blankets and lawn chairs (but no dogs) to secure a good spot. Thai barbecue will be offered for dinner, with beer supplied by Tunbridge-based Brocklebank Craft Brewing. For tickets ($15 in advance; $20 at the gate; $5 for children ages 10 and under), visit sevenstars.org or call 802-765-4454.
New World Music in Randolph
The next day, in Randolph, Chandler Center for the Arts will host its 33rd annual New World Festival, a celebration of Celtic and Quebecois song and dance. Starting at noon, more than 15 bands will perform across five stages. A handful of noteworthy groups include Canadian and Swedish chamber folk band Skye Consort & Emma Björling; Nova Scotian cellist and violinist duo Cassie and Maggie; and Heron Band, of Scotland. For tickets ($35-$65; free for kids ages 12 and under) and more information, visit chandler-arts.org or call 802-728-9878.
