Our Town

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This article refers to the play by Thornton Wilder. For other uses of Our Town see Our town (disambiguation).
Our Town by Thornton Wilder
Our Town by Thornton Wilder

Our Town is a three act play by Thornton Wilder that is, perhaps, the most frequently produced play by an American playwright. The play is set in the fictional community of Grover's Corners, modeled on several New Hampshire towns in the Mount Monadnock region: Jaffrey, Peterborough, Dublin, and others. Using meta-theatrical devices, the play is set in a 1930's theater. Through the actions of the Stage Manager the town of Grover's Corners is created for the audience and scenes from its history between the years of 1901 and 1913 play out. Wilder, in his 30s, began this play before his time at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough in June, 1937, one of many locations where Wilder worked on the play. The third act was drafted entirely in one day during a visit to Zurich in September of 1937 after a long evening walk in the rain with a friend. [1] [2]

Our Town is a story of character development that details the interactions between citizens of an everyday town in the early 20th century through their everyday lives (particularly the lives of George Gibbs, a doctor's son, and Emily Webb, the daughter of a newspaper editor). Our Town was first performed at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey on January 22, 1938. It next opened at the Wilbur Theater in Boston on January 25, 1938. Its New York City debut was on February 4, 1938 at Henry Miller's Theatre, and later moved to the Morosco Theatre. The play was produced and directed by Jed Harris.[3] It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1938.[4]

Contents

[edit] Background

Our Town's main character, the Stage Manager, is completely self-aware of his relationship with the audience, leaving him free to break the fourth wall and address them. According to the script, it is to be performed with little scenery and no set or props. The reasons spring from Wilder's own dissatisfaction with the theatre of his time: "I felt that something had gone wrong....I began to feel that the theatre was not only inadequate, it was evasive."[5] The answer was to have the characters mime the objects with which they interact. Their surroundings are created only with chairs, tables, and ladders. (e.g. The scene in which Emily and George share homework answers through their windows is performed with the two actors standing atop separate ladders to represent elevated windows of neighboring houses.) Says Wilder, "Our claim, our hope, our despair are in the mind—not in things, not in 'scenery'"[6]

Wilder's use of archetypes and stereotypes appeal to average families and make this play a "timeless classic." Beginning with the routine and tiny necessities of daily life, the audience is exposed to the intimate and habitual life of a real American family. The last two acts gradually represent deeper aspects of life. George Gibbs and Emily Webb, whose unspoken mutual affection as children blossoms into love, marriage and death. The Stage Manager, traditionally played by a single person, was turned into an ensemble of girls, acting both as narrators and a sort of Greek chorus, reacting to situations unfolding around them and ultimately working their way into the action as characters. Act 2 celebrates the marriage of George and Emily. The characters analyze the need for human companionship while questioning the institution of marriage. Emily and George's last-minute apprehension about their marriage represent a universal theme of young people wanting to grow up quickly while still craving the relative certainty and security of childhood.

Our Town's strong grasp on its audience lasts through the finale of the play, when the ghost of Emily Webb travels back in time to one her of past birthdays. Through this, Wilder conveys the meaning and significance of the little things in life. The theme of daily life and routine is once again brought back into the play. The author's concept of pursuing life is also brought up with Mrs. Gibbs's desire to visit France. Later in the play that she got the money necessary to go, but she instead left the money to George and his wife, implying either that she, like Emily, did not appreciate life to its fullest, or instead that she came to enjoy the simple pleasures enough so that she didn't need France. The magnitude of small town America, with its slow-moving culture and relaxed atmosphere, is revealed. Because these life lessons are relevant even to today's fast-paced culture, the timelessness of Our Town is over-scored.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Throughout the play, the omniscient Stage Manager conducts the story being told, taking questions from the audience, describing the locations and making key observations about the world he or she creates for the audience. This "man of the hour" also plays several different but key roles within the story he or she tells, such as a preacher and the owner of a soda shop.

[edit] Act One ("Daily Life")

The play begins with the Stage Manager providing a description of the town. After this are scenes within the Gibbses' and Webbs' homes of both families preparing their children for school. The Stage Manager then guides the audience through a day in the life of the town. He also has Professor Willard, a long-winded local historian, and Mr. Webb, editor of the Grover's Corners Sentinel, talk about the town. After a scene within the Congregational Church, Mrs. Webb, Mrs. Gibbs, and Mrs. Soames discuss Simon Stimson. Stimson is the church organist with a reputation for being a drunkard. Due to his non-conforming nature, he is often the subject of the town's gossip. Although a relatively small role, Stimson is Wilder's voice for some of his darker views of humanity. The act also includes a scene in which George and Emily discuss George's trouble in school, foreshadowing a future relationship. The subject of "daily life" addressed throughout this act stereotypes the average "American family".

[edit] Act Two ("Marriage and Love")

Three years pass and George and Emily announce their plans to wed. The day is filled with stress, topped off by George's visit to the Webbs' home. There, he meets Mr. Webb, who tells George of Mr. Webb's father's advice, telling George to treat Emily like property and never respect her needs. Mr. Webb continues to say that he did the exact opposite of his father's advice and has been happy since. Mr. Webb concludes by telling George to never take advice from anyone on matters of that nature. The wedding follows, where George, in a fit of nervousness, tells his mother that he is not ready to marry. Emily, too, tells her father of her anxiety about marriage. However, they both regain their composure and George proceeds down the aisle to be wed by the Stage Manager, who is playing a preacher.

[edit] Act Three ("Death)

The Stage Manager introduces the location: a graveyard atop a hill overlooking Grover's Corners. Sam Craig, Emily's cousin, and Joe Stoddard, the undertaker, are walking through. Emily, after dying in childbirth, is being buried here today. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the living, the dead observe the living while seated in their "graves". Among the dead are Mrs. Gibbs, Mrs. Soames, and Simon Stimson. Emily soon joins them. As Mrs. Gibbs tells them of Emily's death during childbirth, Mrs. Soames makes the remark, "My, wasn't life awful - and wonderful," a line that somewhat summarizes the whole play, showing that life has both its upsides and downsides and that we never really notice the importance of our lives while we live them.

Emily finds that she is able to relive moments in her life and, against the advice of Mrs. Gibbs and with the help of the Stage Manager, decides to relive a day in her life. Mrs. Gibbs advises Emily that if she is to pick a day to relive, she should pick one that is insignificant; the reasoning behind this suggestion is that not only will Emily relive the day, she will also observe the day with the knowledge of the future. Emily decides to revisit her twelfth birthday. She is at first overwhelmed with joy, but this succumbs to tears, when she realizes how much she took for granted when she was alive and how quickly life speeds by. She says "We don't even have time to look at one another." After one last look at Grover's Corners and being alive, Emily tells the Stage Manager she is ready to go back to the graveyard. She asks, "Doesn't anyone ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?" The Stage Manager responds. "No. Saints and poets, maybe; they do some." Wilder emphasizes that we, while we live, seldom appreciate the precious details in our lives; remarkable for an author not yet 40.

Back in the cemetery, Simon Stimson, who committed suicide by hanging himself in the attic, reveals the bitterness of his soul, remarking that life was full of ignorance and blindness. Mrs. Gibbs reassures Emily that Simon's bitter view "ain't the whole truth and [he] knows it." Stars are mentioned as a metaphor of life and how it is always changing, always evolving. Here Wilder addresses life's ongoing cycle: the "circle of life". While looking at the whole picture, the dead understand how minuscule human life is, especially when comparing it with the millions of years it takes for the light of stars to travel to earth. The play drives its moral home when George Gibbs approaches Emily’s grave and collapses in tears, as Emily watching this is saddened and amazed at how the living "don't understand." The play closes with the Stage Manager making a few comments about how tomorrow is a new day - the implication being that we, the audience, the living, should live every, every minute.

(In the 1940 film version, for which Wilder wrote the screenplay and was given complete script control, Wilder agreed to a happier ending in which Emily dreams her death, but does not actually die.)

[edit] Analysis

"Our Town" focuses primarily on two neighboring families in the hamlet of Grover's Corners, N.H.: the Gibbses and the Webbs. With a folksy, storytelling stage manager (Thom Johnson) as our guide, we soon learn that young George Gibbs (John Boonin) is an up-an-coming baseball star, while Emily Webb (Amanda Akins) is a conscientious, serious-minded student. As the two grow up, they fall in love and marry, but shortly thereafter, they face tragedy, and Emily comes to realize how precious life is. Our Town was orignally created to represent the cycle of life. The cycle of life being refered to includes the aspects of life, death, and rebirth.

The third act is unusual in that it has a surrealistic and grim atmosphere in contrast with the relatively realistic and optimistic tone of the first two acts. It also is the most philosophical of the three, perhaps serving as an interpretation on how ordinary life connects with eternity, the enigma of death and the beyond, and also on how life's simplicity can be its most unusual element. Furthermore, according to the dead characters in Act III, their time in the living has already been spent, and they hence must look forward to "eternity" — an abstract concept that cannot be defined within the boundaries of the living world. This implies that life is actually only a starting point for the great experience of the afterlife, focusing on time-based events and superficial human interactions before ascending to a higher level of understanding and/or fulfillment.

Uplifting as Our Town is, taken as a whole, Wilder nonetheless confronts the darker side of the realities of life at the turn of the century: Julia Gibbs, wife of Dr. Gibbs, dies of pneumonia after 20 years of marriage, Wally Webb, the editor's son, dies of a burst appendix on a boy scout camping trip; Joe Crowell, Jr., the paper boy, an honors high school and MIT graduate, dies on a World War-I battlefield, "all that education for nothing," Wilder says; Simon Stimson, the church organist, a depressed alcoholic, hangs himself; and our lovely female lead, Emily Webb, dies following the birth of her second child. Does the embittered Stimson reflect Wilder's darker personal vision? His small, but prominent role, is suggestive.

In essence, the play as a whole could be viewed as a commentary on the general nature of life as a unique and precious experience. The production's large, black stage is almost totally bare (per the script), leaving the actors to pantomime the majority of their actions, and other members of the cast - who sit at the stage's periphery throughout the show - produce sound effects for window shades, snapping beans, a horse, milk bottles, and clucking chickens. Overall, the effects are well-executed in terms of timing, and the convention works well to underline the play's inherent artifice.

[edit] Characters

The main characters are:

  • The Stage Manager
  • George Gibbs
  • Emily Webb
  • Mrs. Julia Gibbs
  • Dr. Frank F. Gibbs
  • Mrs. Myrtle Webb
  • Mr. Charles Webb
  • Howie Newsome


Rest of Cast (in order of appearance):

  • Joe Crowell
  • Si Crowell
  • Rebecca Gibbs
  • Wally Webb
  • Professor Willard
  • Simon Stimson
  • Mrs. Soames
  • Constable Warren
  • Joe Stoddard
  • Sam Craig

[edit] Adaptations

It was adapted into a film in 1940 starring William Holden as George and another film in 2003 starring Paul Newman as the Stage Manager. It was also made into a television musical starring Frank Sinatra as the Stage Manager, and Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint in their only musical roles. One hit tune came from this production, "Love and Marriage", sung by Sinatra.

Several more television adaptations followed, none of them musicals:

  • One in 1959, based on a then-recent revival with Art Carney as the Stage Manager
  • And, most recently, another highly acclaimed television production in 2003 again starring Paul Newman, but this time as the Stage Manager. This was also based on a stage production, and was executive-produced by Newman's wife, actress Joanne Woodward.
  • While the 1940 film version drastically altered the play's ending, ruining it in the eyes of many, the non-musical television versions did not.
  • A new stage musical adaptation entitled "Grover's Corners", in development since the mid-1980s, was recently workshopped in New York City.[7]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Wilder, Thornton; William Rice & Edward Burns et al. (1996), The letters of Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder, New Haven: Yale University Press, ISBN 0300067747
  2. ^ Steward, Samuel & Alice Toklas (1977), Dear Sammy: Letters from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 0395253403
  3. ^ IBDB. Our Town. Retrieved on August 5, 2006.
  4. ^ Pulitzer.org. Pulitzer Prize Winners of 1938. Retrieved on August 5, 2006.
  5. ^ Wilder, Thornton. Collected Plays. Preface.
  6. ^ Lumley, Frederick. New Trends in 20th Century Drama: A Survey since Ibsen and Shaw. Page 333.
  7. ^ http://members.aol.com/N2theWoods/othershows.html#gcorners
  • Wilder, Tappan. Afterword from Our Town, A Play in Three Acts. Perennial Classics, HarperCollins, New York, NY, 2003.

[edit] External links

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