I recently started listening to Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (read by Meryl Streep, no less) and quickly decided to pause. I don’t know how much of the novel is about putting on a production of Our Town (1938) by Thornton Wilder, but even if it is only the opening chapters, I was feeling very at sea. Patchett obviously assumes knowledge of this play which I absolutely didn’t have.
Am I right in saying that Our Town is a staple of American high school productions? I’ve heard it referenced plenty of times, though only as a cultural mainstay, rather than what it is actually about. And of course reading a play isn’t as good as seeing it performed, but needs must – and now I’ve read all about the everytown of Grover’s Corners.
If, like me, you don’t know the play – here’s a quick intro. Over the course of three acts, it looks at Grover’s Corners in 1901, 1904, and 1913. Over that time, the main characters are drawn from two families: the Gibbs and the Webbs. Charles and Myrtle are parents to Emily and Wally; Dr Frank and Julia are parents to George. Much of the later play is taken up by the marriage of George and Emily, and what happens afterwards – though it is told in a very unconventional way.
Coming to this blank, I had no idea what to expect. And it is a lot more formally inventive than I had anticipated. Rather than simply present the townsfolk of this ordinary town, it is done in an interesting, metatheatrical way (perhaps this is why high schools love teaching it?) Characters don’t just remember scenes – they relive them, on stage, in guise as their younger selves. We even get quite a lot of the afterlife. The Stage Manager is a sort of stage God, filtering and to an extent controlling all of the goings on. He is also open about the artifice of it all – early on, for example, when trellises are wheeled on: “Here’s a couple of trellises for those who feel they have to have scenery.”
He also has a longish speech that – correct me if I’m wrong – I’d guess is one of the most quoted from the play, because it explains Wilder’s purpose in writing it. Here’s part of the speech:
Y’know — Babylon once had two million people in it, and all we know about ’em is the names of the kings and some copies of wheat contracts … and contracts for the sale of slaves. Yet every night all those families sat down to supper, and the father came home from his work, and the smoke went up the chimney — same as here. And even in Greece and Rome, all we know about the real lives of the people is what we can piece together out of the joking poems and the comedies they wrote for the theatre back then. So I’m going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone and the people a thousand years from now’ll know a few simple facts about us–more than the Treaty of Versailles and the Lindbergh flight. See what I mean? So, – people a thousand years from now – this is the way we were in the provinces North of New York at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, – this is the way we were – in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying.
And yet, even reading it on the page, you can tell that Our Town dodges the postmodern trap of cleverness wiping out compassion. I still cared about Emily and George, and I’m sure I’d care about them a lot more if I saw them on stage. There are also plenty of funny lines, and I particularly enjoyed Mrs Gibbs saying: “It seems to me that once in your life before you die, you ought to see a country where they don’t talk in English and don’t even want to.”
I’m glad I read Our Town and I feel like I can place one more piece of the jigsaw of American literary culture – and now, of course, I’m also ready to read Tom Lake.
Definitely an American staple, of high school curricula and both amateur and professional stages. I read it for the 1938 Club and my Reading New England project, archived here…
https://emeraldcitybookreviewarchive.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/reading-new-england-our-town/
I’m so glad you gave it a read and could appreciate it – I still need to read Tom Lake too!
Oo yes, of course you did!
I’m glad you liked it. Possibly because it is a staple of our high school, I have always thought it was incredibly tedious. I think I’ve just been exposed to it too much. I might have liked it the first time I saw it or read it, but I can’t remember.
Ah shame, I can see how that would happen. I think the same happened to Of Mice and Men for me, because of school, though I’ve loved over Steinbeck.
Why does this post feel somehow dismissive (After all, Shakespeare is no stranger to high school auditoriums)? Thornton Wilder was a deeply humane genius (and, incidentally, pre-eminent Joyce scholar) who ranks among the greatest writers of the 20th century – of any nationality. I was reminded of this most recently when seeing a couple of different productions of The Skin of Our Teeth, and was hoping NT Live would bring out the recent Welsh National Theatre production of Our Town (with Michael Sheen), but it does not seem to be forthcoming . . .
Gracious, what a thing to take from a very positive post! Certainly not intended.
I haven’t read or taught Our Town in many years, but as I get older, I often think of which day I would relive if I could have one day back. I think it would be an ordinary day when my children were 4 and 8. So glad you enjoyed this tender play.
Yes, such an interesting thought!
“Our Town” has been regularly revived on Broadway and in regional theaters in the US. I remember a production back in the 1950s on tv where Paul Newman played the young man. Decades later, he played the Stage Manager in a Broadway production. It’s been in many high school productions as you guessed. An American classic!
Oh wow! It’s so interesting that it hasn’t really made the move here (except the recent Welsh production that people are mentioning)
So glad you liked this play! As many before me have remarked, it’s a theater staple for a reason and a true classic. I avoided it initially because I thought it would be too sentimental. When I finally read it in a college English course on drama, I found it incredibly moving. Maybe I should check out Torn Lake, which I’ve been avoiding.
P.S. Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth is also pretty great!
I agree re: The Skin of Our Teeth. My university’s theatre put it on and I’d never heard of it, let alone read it. I don’t remember a LOT about it, but I remember being quite impressed by it.
It’s interesting how huge it is in the US and how it doesn’t seem to have made the jump to the UK.
The most common quote I’ve heard is:
“Good-bye, Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover’s Corners….Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking….and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths….and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it — every, every minute?”
Ah, I wouldn’t have picked that one!
I don’t know the work of Thornton Wilder at all but you’ve definitely encouraged me to pick this up and try and catch a production if I can.
It definitely feels like something that is ubiquitous in the US and not super well known here
I haven’t read Tom Lake but often mean to, so thank you for this and I’ll try and read or see Our Town first.
I must read Tom Lake now, before I forget the details!
How fascinating, Simon! I’ve never read Wilder as far as I’m aware, though I have heard of him, and this sounds very clever and meta – though I like the fact that you can still relate to the characters.
yes, I’d love to see it staged now
Definitely helpful context for understanding Tom Lake! When my mom started reading it, I borrowed a DVD of Our Town from the library so she could watch as she’d never heard of the play before.
Ah good! I was wondering if I’d go back and find that Our Town was never mentioned again after the first chapter :D