Our Town: A Play in Three Acts (Perennial Classics) | Thornton Wilder

Our Town: A Play in Three Acts (Perennial Classics) | Thornton Wilder | Our Town, a short yet entertaining read that captures the several stages of life.

books:

Our Town: A Play i...

	Our Town: A Play in Three Acts (Perennial Classics) Thornton Wilder Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2003 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 110 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

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.

The Face of Eternity and the Mind of God

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

for more information click here

Our Town, a short yet entertaining read that captures the several stages of life.

Thorton Wilder's short play, "Our Town," follows the lives of two close knit families, experiencing the different stages of life: birth, childhood, adulthood and death. I recommend anyone to read this play just so they can have the opportunity to read about the phases that others go through. For example, the story mentions the common worries, concerns and yearnings of parent Mrs.Gibbs, who wishes to take a break from the stressful life of being a mother yet she is held back by the contrasting wishes and aspirations of her husband. "Our Town" is filled with amusing yet relatable events of being disciplined by your parents, which remind us of our childhood, such as when George is admonished by his father. Another interesting tale unfolds as we witness a young relationship between George and Emily flourish into a marriage. Their entertaining anxieties while dating, and even getting married, are humorous and thought provoking for young readers. Unexpected turns of events and sudden losses conclude the story, leaving an important message for the reader which is, care and treasure your loved ones while you still can.

for more information click here

Our Town Script

What can I say, it is the script to Our Town. I have found a couple of places where it differes from the Samuel French script by a sentence or two.

One VERY GOOD difference is that THIS script also has a lot of background on Thornton Wilder and the times that the existed when the play was writen and first produced.

Our Town

I've enjoyed reading this version of Thornton Wilder's, "Our Town". It's a short, 3 act play but nevertheless is huge in its message. The introduction in this version is helpful and clues the reader to appreciate and look for the deep message of the play. It was through the study of this publication I felt renewed in my love for life! A quick read and well worth the time.

for more information click here

Very Wonderful Play

I don't understand why people are saying bad things about Our Town, because it is a very wonderful play with three acts, centering around a small town, Grover's Corners in New Hampshire and the lives of two families, the Gibbs family and the Webb family.

It is a very wonderful play about life in small town before cars and electronics and how they lived. It is a beautiful play that is very excellent and everybody should read it, for it is a quick read, but a very delightful play.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

products you might be interested in