Our town: New Theatre’s Book of Days

Set on a blank stage with a tree in the centre, New Theatre’s production of Lanford Wilson’s Book of Days could be forgiven for seeming, at first, to be rather empty. As Wilson’s play progresses and we come to know the small backwater town of Dublin, Missouri, we soon learn that it is anything but empty.

Wearing its influences on its sleeve, Book of Days was written in 2000, and owes much to Thornton Wilder’s seminal American play, Our Town, in tone and conceit. In Dublin, Missouri, where life revolves around the local cheese factory and the church, Ruth (book-keeper for the cheese factory) is chosen to play the lead role in Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. But, like all small towns, there is something dark lurking beneath the surface and, after an unfortunate accident during a tornado, Ruth takes it upon herself to try and uncover the truth, as the worlds of the local community and the theatre combine.