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Our Town Play Analysis

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JOY OLAKANLU Title: Critique of a play “Our Town” The play “Our Town” written by Thornton Wilder produced by the West Port Country Play house opens by introducing the audience to its setting with an opening sound, Grover's Corners, and the narrator of the play who also interacts with the audience. The narrator knows the thoughts and actions of all the characters. Grover's Corners is a small town, still years away from its first automobile. As the narrator notes, most families stay in Grover's Corners forever; It’s a recreation of normal daily activities of a small town that introduced us to the WEBS and GIBBSES who are two main families of the town. The genre is drama with setting of a 1901 to 1913. Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. It’s a play that considered Life and death in an American small town as a subject. Behind Wilder's emphasis on a bare stage is a subtle understanding of how our minds work during a play. We can imagine any small town. Set on the individual mental stage conjured up in each …show more content…

The setting is the barest minimum. There is virtually no plot; consequently no suspense, expectation, or anticipation.Wilder also breaks with traditional concepts of dramatic illusion. In the usual play, the dramatist hopes that the audience will become emotionally involved in imaginary events and will forget the surrounding theater. Wilder makes no effort to convince the audience that the events of the play are real. In fact, he constantly reminds the audience that they are in a theater watching actors perform in a make-believe world. Wilder's purpose is to present, as far as possible, an enactment of a typical day in a small town. Wilder tries to include anecdotal, Norman Rockwell–style activities connected with the humor and traditional elements that accompany a wedding. In this way, he evokes a sense of its importance, even though one wedding does not differ demonstrably from

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The black box theater is a very intimate setting to begin with, and as I took my seat in the theater, I felt that intimacy. The theater was dark, and the audience was virtually silent before the production began. As I sat waiting for the performance to begin, I took in the lighting, the props, and the set as a whole, and I began to feel as if I were sitting just at the edge of a different time period. The design element that stood out most to me was the lighting of the river because the gobos and the selection of down lights made the river come to life, almost as if it was another character in this production. I was definitely drawn into the world of this play due to the intimacy of the black box theater and the lighting design of the

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Our Town is a award winning three act play written by Thornton Wilder. Few years later it was made into a motion picture. In the story, it takes place in Grover’s Corner, New Hampshire. It centers around two families living everyday life in the early 1900’s. Surrounded by the people that live a simple life.

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The play Our Town is about the people of a small town of Grover's Corners in New Hampshire. This play focuses mainly on two families, the Gibbs and the Webbs. The play portrays teenage years, love and marriage, and death throughout the three acts. Throughout the play, Emily Webb, Mrs. Gibbs, and Joe Crowell suddenly die suddenly when they had their whole lives ahead of them. Wilder conveys that death happens at any time so one should live every day like it will be their last.

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Whether it is someone who is just saying "hello" or a person who communicates during the entire play, conversation portrays a large part throughout the novel. Thornton Wilder brings to our attention the importance of community through dialogue by the simple, what seems to be nonexistent, roles in the play. For instance, Joe Crowell Jr., the mailman has what seems to be insignificant conversations with each character he delivers mail to, when overall, the reader begins to have more knowledge about the town and the kind of community that Grover's Corner is. As Joe was talking to Dr. Gibbs, he found out that some twins were born in Polish Town, and in some way or another, the message got to multiple people in no time. In other words, just a few sentences from Joe Crowell to some of the townspeople displays to the reader the importance of community and the diverse ways a community can spread

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