Our townbyThornton Wilder

Out Town (1938) is a Pulitzer Prize for Drama winning 3-act play by Thornton Wilder. It is one of the most popular and important American Plays ever and have been adapted into film, opera, and other adaptations many times. In addition to winning the Pulitzer, it won the Tony Award for Best Revival in 1989.

The story is set in fictional Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. It was inspired by his friend Gertrude Stein's novel The Making of Americans (1925), and many elements of Stein's deconstructive style can be found throughout the work. Wilder suffered from severe writer's block while writing the final act. Our Town employs a choric narrator called the "Stage Manager" and a minimalist set to underscore the human experience. Wilder himself played the Stage Manager on Broadway for two weeks and later in summer stock productions. Following the daily lives of the Gibbs and Webb families as well as the other inhabitants of Grover’s Corners, Wilder illustrates the importance of the universality of the simple, yet meaningful lives of all people in the world in order to demonstrate the value of appreciating life.


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Plot - from Wikipedia Entry

The Stage Manager guides the play, taking questions from the audience, describing the locations (as scenery is sparce) and making key observations about the world the play creates. The Stage Manager also plays several small but important roles, such as a preacher, the owner of a soda shop, and an old woman.

Act I: Daily Life

The play begins with the Stage Manager describing the town. After this come scenes in the Gibbs' and Webbs' homes, where both families prepare their children for school. The Stage Manager then guides the audience through a day in the life of the town. The local milkman, Howie Newsome, reappears during every morning scene—o nce each in Acts I, II, and III—highlighting the continuity of life in Grover's Corners and in the general human experience. The Stage Manager also has Professor Willard, a long-winded local historian, and Mr. Webb, editor of the Grover's Corners Sentinel, talk about the town. During this scene, Editor Webb answers some questions from actors who have been planted in the audience. After a scene within the Congregational Church at a choir practice, 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 school. Emily's agreement to help George with his schoolwork foreshadows a future relationship. Also on the ladder, George's younger sister Rebecca, talks about the moon and how it might get nearer and nearer until there's a "big 'splosion", showing George's sister is a curious girl. The subject of "daily life" addressed throughout this act stereotypes the average "American family."

Act II: Love and Marriage

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 Webb family home. There, he meets Mr. Webb, who tells George of his own father's advice to him: to treat his wife like property and never to respect her needs. Mr. Webb then says that he did the exact opposite of his father's advice and has been happy since. Mr. Webb concludes by telling George not to take advice from anyone on matters of that nature. Here, the Stage Manager interrupts the scene and takes the audience back a year, to the end of Emily and George's junior year. Over an ice cream soda, Emily confronts George with his pride, and they discuss the future and their love for each other. 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, saying she wishes she were dead. However, they both regain their composure, and George proceeds down the aisle to be wed by the preacher (played by the Stage Manager). Mrs Soames is very pleased with the wedding, as she purrs, "Isn't this the loveliest wedding..." The text is interrupted by the individual thoughts, a modern twist to Shakespeare's soliloquy.

Act III: Death and Eternity

The setting for Act III is a cemetery near Grover's Corners. The Stage Manager opens this act with a lengthy soliloquy emphasizing eternity, expressed by the survival of Emily's second child after Emily herself dies giving birth. Emily's coffin is brought to the cemetery and buried, and she emerges from the mourners as a spirit. She joins her relatives and fellow townsfolk in the graveyard, including her mother-in-law, Mrs Gibbs, Simon Stimson, Mrs Soames, Wally Webb and Mr Carter. The dead tell her that they must wait and forget the life that came before, but Emily refuses. Soon Emily's ghost learns it is possible to re-live parts of her past life. Despite the warnings of Simon, Mrs Soames, and Mrs Gibbs, Emily decides to return to Earth to re-live just one day, her 12th birthday, and realizes just how much life should be valued, "every, every minute." Poignantly, she asks the Stage Manager whether anyone realizes life while they live it, and is told, "No. Saints and poets, maybe. They do some." She then returns to her grave. The Stage Manager concludes the play with a soliloquy and wishes the audience a good night.

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Product Description
Our Town was first produced and published in 1938 to wide acclaim. This Pulitzer Prize–winning drama of life in the town of Grover's Corners, an allegorical representation of all life, has become a classic. It is Thornton Wilder's most renowned and most frequently performed play.

It is now reissued in this handsome hardcover edition, featuring a new Foreword by Donald Margulies, who writes, "You are holding in your hands a great American play. Possibly the great American play." In addition, Tappan Wilder has written an eye-opening new Afterword, which includes Thornton Wilder's unpublished notes and other illuminating photographs and documentary material.