The play Our Town, written by Thornton Wilder, was an... interesting piece, telling the story of a normal, everyday town in New Hampshire called Grover’s Corners, that took place the early 1900’s. This play was not necessarily my favorite. I found it to be very boring and anti-climactic, but since time period it was written in was what it was, it provided an excuse for it to be this way. The time period was one that was filled with comforting, everyday-life writings. There are a few elements of this piece that contributed to its lack of excitement, one being its basic plot events or lack of them.
The plot of the story was simple, displaying four basic themes, life, love, death, and time or artificiality of theater. Because three of these four themes are something that everyone obviously experiences, the plot had a lack of individuality. It was broken up into three acts, the first being the one that displayed life. This act consisted of a typical day in Grover’s Corners, the milkman and the paperboy making their rounds, and children eating breakfast and getting ready for school. The women of the town gossiped together and two of the children from the town talked together, George and Emily, slowly showing a love interest between them. This leads to the second act which takes place three years later and displays love, because the only event that occurs in this scene is the wedding of Emily and George. At first, Emily is nervous to get married, but then realizes that George is meant for her and she is meant for him. They get happily married. The last act takes place nine years after the wedding, and displays the theme of death. They are in a cemetery and Emily is being buried, having died during childbirth. She is among others who have already died, including some from the town she knew well. She speaks with them, and tells them that she wishes to relive a day of her life and see those she loves. The others tell her it is a bad idea because it would only cause her sorrow, but she does anyway. She relives her 12th birthday, but she becomes very sad as she comes to deeply miss her family, so she demands to go back to the cemetery. She discusses with the dead her newfound appreciation for everyday life and how she should have appreciated it more when she was alive, and the others confirm they have come to the same realization. Emily exclaimed that the living just do not understand, and the play ends. These three themes are obviously displayed throughout the play as well as the fourth theme, that is showed through lack of set and the amount of staging described by the stage manager.
The set of the play was very interesting, often being described by the stage manager and lacking an actual, physical set. There were no props or any other types of scenery within the play as it was being performed. The setting of the story was explained by the stage manager, who had an oddly large number of lines throughout the play, in order for the audience to be able to follow along with what was happening. It took place in the fictitious town of Grover’s Corners from 1901-1913. Some of the staging was done by the stage manager as well, telling people where they should be during the play and putting things where they belong as well, such as chairs, which were about the only props that were used in the entire play. I found this to be incredibly boring, and honestly, I didn’t like it very much. With the stage manager having to describe what objects were where in the scene, it made it a boring read and sort of confusing.
The playwright was able to create such a revolutionary method of staging and set because of his family background. Thornton Wilder was born to an educated, successful family, with both parents having excellent skills in language arts. His mother was a successful poet while his father was a newspaper owner and editor as well as a powerful public speaker. Thornton grew up around writing and was very influenced by his parents. When his family moved to China, he took English classes to improve his skills. Soon, his family moved back from China to the United States and his passion for writing continued to grow. He was off to Yale University but soon volunteered as a soldier in WW1. After he returned from the war, he received his bachelor’s degree from Yale and wrote his first play, The Trumpet Shall Sound. He then began to teach French and English in different schools and wrote many scripts for silent films as well. He soon wrote two novels, his second more popular than the first, and then began writing for broadway. He soon wrote Our Town, and I believe it was an attempt to show normalcy in the United States. This was comforting to the Americans so it soared in popularity. This production was a breakthrough in play narration with the role of the stage manager, leading many to follow its lead.
His writing style throughout Our Town fit the time period, using some slang from the early 1900’s such as ‘yonder’ and ‘easy as kittens’. Also, things are just phrased differently than they would be now. The language fit the characters who spoke in the time period, such as the two lovers Emily Webb and George Gibbs who were at first just childhood friends but grew to be husband and wife. This story was mainly about them and their experiences with life, love, and death. Their families were also involved, just talking about life around Grover’s Corners and guiding them with their decisions. Few other important characters were involved, just a few figures known around the town such as the paperboy or the milkman. Well, aside from the extremely important stage manager who broke the fourth wall multiple times throughout the story. Wilder’s use of language in the play fit perfectly for the characters, not too metaphorical or poetic for everyday conversation, yet deep enough for us to understand the themes he tried to convey.
Overall, I believe that Thornton Wilder’s Our Town was exactly what he meant it to be, a comforting story of everyday life in a normal town, with just enough of his own creativity in it to give it something a little special and make it his own story. Though I did not love the play, I do respect Wilder as a writer and appreciate his revolutionary idea of the lack of set and the important role of the stage manager. I believe that I would like him more if I read another piece of his, because the writing itself, I liked. His writing is good but the play... I do not recommend.
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