Call it one wedding and several funerals.

The Act 1 production of “Our Town,” through Feb 27, Main Stage, Labuda Center for the Performing Arts, DeSales University, is much more than that.

Thorton Wilder’s 1938 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, “Our Town: A Play in Three Acts,” begins imperceptibly. Stage hands drop an aqua scrim. A few chairs and tables are placed.

Then, the Stage Manager, played with nonchalant effectiveness by Gregory J. Wintle, leans against the stage wall audience left, and tells us what for.

The play’s Act 1 is “Daily Life.”

It’s 1901 in Grover’s Corners, N.H. The day begins and the town folk go about their business.

Emily Webb (Mackenzie Schmidt) and George Gibbs (Carter Sachse) are getting ready for school, urged not to be late by their parents, Mrs. Webb (Izzy Criscuolo) and Mr. Webb (William Pearce), editor of the local newspaper, the Grover’s Corners Sentinel, and Mrs. Gibbs (Emily Barrett) and Dr. Gibbs (Maxwell Gorman), the town’s physician.

The actors mime their movements. For example, Howie Newsome, the milkman, has a lot to do and Joseph Correale, playing the role, does it well.

We also meet Rebecca Gibbs, George’s younger sister, who is a little girl played with amazing alacrity by Kylie Menow.

The play’s Act 2 is “Love and Marriage.”

And indeed it is. “Our Town” is nothing if not disarmingly straightforward about its concerns.

It’s three years later. Emily and George are on the cusp of their marriage, with their burgeoning romance shown in flashback, with Wintle jovially playing the ice cream parlor owner, as the young couple has a heart-to-heart conversation, mainly with Emily challenging George. Instead of being defensive, George is wisely receptive.

The play’s Act 3 is “Death and Eternity.”

It’s nine years later. Again, it says it all. No, ahem, burial plot spoilers here, but suffice it to say, the setting is a cemetery. Rows of townspeople are seated. Are they attendees at a funeral? Are they the funeral? Are they in the great beyond?

The third act packs a powerful punch, keynoted by Schmidt’s extraordinary performance. She was building to this in Act 2 when she challenged George (Sachse).

In Act 3, she’s in, shall we say, a world of her own. Schmidt’s sensitive performance, burning with the emotive force just this side of a nervous breakdown, propels the audience to tears. Or at least it did me. This actress will break your heart, as well she should. Her scenes provide the play’s fulcrum on which all that has gone before turns.

And thus the catharsis that is “Our Town.”

”Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?,” Emily (Schmidt) asks the Stage Manager (Wintle), who replies (In New England, they always reply, not merely answer.), “No. The saints and poets, maybe ... “

DeSales’ Act 1 “Our Town” Director Steven Dennis understands this, else he wouldn’t have been able to direct with such elegance and restraint, and elicit remarkable performances from the DeSales’ student thespians.

Technical credits are top-notch: Scene Designer Will Neuert, Lighting Designer Eric T. Haugen, Sound Designer David M. Greenberg and Costume Designer Deborah Burrill.

As a footnote to realpolitik, and this ole world’s state of affairs, far from Grover’s Corners (or maybe not so far), it was reported that In 1946, the Soviet Union banned an “Our Town” production in Communist-ruled East Berlin because “the drama is too depressing and could inspire a German suicide wave.”

The more things change, the more they remain the same, as in Russia and the Ukraine.

And in “Our Town.”

“You’ve got to love life to have life, and you’ve got to have life to love life,” says the Stage Manager (Wintle).

Start by seeing the superb DeSales’ Act 1 production of “Our Town.”

“Our Town,” continuing 8 p.m. February 24, 25, 26; 2 p.m. Feb. 27, Act 1, Main Stage, Labuda Center for the Performing Arts, DeSales University, 2755 Station Avenue, Center Valley. Tickets: https://www.desales.edu; 610-282-1100