Our Town: A Play in Three Acts (Perennial Classics)
by Thornton Wilder
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Book Summary Information
Author: Thornton WilderForeword: Donald Margulies
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003
ISBN: 0060512636
Number of pages: 181
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780060512637
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Our Town: A Play in Three Acts (Perennial Classics)
Book Review: The Face of Eternity and the Mind of God
Summary: 5 Stars
By most accounts Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) considered himself a teacher rather than a writer--a curious situation given than he won numerous literary awards, including three Pulitzers. Among these prize-winners was OUR TOWN, first staged in 1938. It is generally considered to be the single most famous play written by an American author, and Samuel French Inc., which holds the amateur performance rights, states that it is performed at least once a day somewhere in the world, as popular abroad as at home.
The play is perhaps most widely known for the way in which it is staged. The stage is bare. A few chairs, stools, tables, and ladders are used to indicate a kitchen, a bed room window, a soda fountain, a cemetery and other locations; the actors mime use of imaginary glasses, plates, bowls, satchels, and boxes.
The story is equally simple. The first act introduces us to the town, Grover's Corners in New Hampshire, seen in the early years of the 20th Century--and most particularly to the Gibbs and Webb families, who live next door to each other. The second act finds boy-next-door George and girl-next-door Emily marrying, and a flash-black shows the audience how their romance began. It is a simple tale, full of details of small town life, church choir on Wednesday night, milk delivered fresh each morning, breakfast to be made, chickens to be fed--and slowly, as the action moves forward, we are drawn into this simple way of life and its seemingly endless and trivial repetitions.
Wilder swirls a number of themes throughout the work, themes that are simple yet profound, details of the particular and the universal--and these gather suddenly, unexpectedly in the third and final act, which comes as a shock after the charming ease of the play. Emily has died in childbirth and she takes her place in the cemetery among the dead, all of whom patiently wait and watch for something which is not yet clear, the minutes passing one by one into eternity, their memories of life fading into nothingness, a portrait of darkness that is yet somehow still seeded with light. It is here that Wilder makes his ultimate statement: who are you when you have been shorn of all earthly details and devices? Where do you exist within the mind of God?
Many non-theatre people find playscripts difficult to read, and in truth playscripts are a blueprint for directors and actors and not intended as reading material for the general public. This is preface to the very basic statement that some plays "read" well and some do not--and that this is not necessarily an indication of how the play actually performs. On the page, OUR TOWN reads a bit flat; it seems a shade obvious, a shade ordinary. On the stage, however, it easily one of the most delicately beautiful constructs imaginable, a play which demonstrates the beauty and value of each life--no matter how ordinary it may be. Remarkable stuff and strongly recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Summary of Our Town: A Play in Three Acts (Perennial Classics)
A handsome Perennial Classics edition of America's favourite play, Our Town, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
First produced and published in 1938, this Pulitzer Prize?winning drama of life in the small village of Grover's Corners has become an American classic and is Thornton Wider's most renowned and most frequently performed play.
This Perennial Classics edition includes a foreword by Donald Margulies and contains an afterword with documentary material edited by Tappan Wilder.
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