THORTON WILDER’S “OUR TOWN” AND THE WOOSTER GROUP’S “ROUTES 1 & 9″
Thorton Wilder’s Our Town is the story of the small town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. Set in the early twentieth century, it depicts the ordinary lives of its inhabitants. There is a particular focus on the lives of Emily Webb, the daughter of a newspaper editor and George Gibbs, a doctor’s son. Act one, taking place in 1901, reveals a typical day in the town, with the milkman going about his job and kids rushing off for school. Act two takes place in 1904 and depicts the budding romance and consequent wedding of Emily Webb and George Gibbs. Act three, set in 1913, shows the audience the dead townsfolk of Grover’s Corners (in ghost form) and how they interact with and respond to the living.
What I liked about the play is that I felt like I was a visitor of Grover’s Corners. The Stage Manager was like my host family of a new country, taking me through the everyday happenings of the town, interrupting people as though trying not to waste my time when there are other exciting things to see. The argument however, that Our Townillustrates the universality of human concerns that is regardless of national identity does not appeal to me. I think that if placed in this framework, any play, literally any play in the world can be seen as universal. From Shakespeare’s Hamlet to Waiting for Godot, what about these plays makes them any less universal than Our Town? They too are renditions of the human condition and human experience that can be highly universally applicable. There is nothing about Our Town that compels me to concur with the argument that deems it universal in a way that is so extraordinary. Furthermore, plays like Waiting for Godot are truly universal regardless of national identity because space is not addressed or given one bit of importance. In Our Town, ‘their’ town was indeed an important aspect of the play. Sure, there were elements that are very common in our mundane experiences of a routine life, like the milkman in the morning and the rush of
What I liked about the play is that I felt like I was a visitor of Grover’s Corners. The Stage Manager was like my host family of a new country, taking me through the everyday happenings of the town, interrupting people as though trying not to waste my time when there are other exciting things to see. The argument however, that Our Townillustrates the universality of human concerns that is regardless of national identity does not appeal to me. I think that if placed in this framework, any play, literally any play in the world can be seen as universal. From Shakespeare’s Hamlet to Waiting for Godot, what about these plays makes them any less universal than Our Town? They too are renditions of the human condition and human experience that can be highly universally applicable. There is nothing about Our Town that compels me to concur with the argument that deems it universal in a way that is so extraordinary. Furthermore, plays like Waiting for Godot are truly universal regardless of national identity because space is not addressed or given one bit of importance. In Our Town, ‘their’ town was indeed an important aspect of the play. Sure, there were elements that are very common in our mundane experiences of a routine life, like the milkman in the morning and the rush of