Our Town – Shaping The Modern Theater
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Shaping the Modern Theater:
Relating the Work to the Audience, Changing American Theater Forever
Traditional theater is simply a portrayal of fictional events through an artistic display. Thornton Wilder, author of Our Town, created a different portrayal of fictional events that captivated the minds of audiences abroad. Utilizing techniques rarely seen before, Wilder connected his works to his viewers in a way never before seen in American Literature. In an effort to eliminate the barrier between actor and audience, Thornton Wilder changes the American theater by using the Stage Manager, as well as themes of simplicity and the importance of life in his play Our Town.
Before looking into the novel itself, one must first understand the characterization. The Stage Manager, one of Thornton Wilders characters from Our Town, is used primarily as a liaison between the audience and the actors on stage. He talks to the audience for the actors, and has small conversations with the actors themselves, making the audience feel as though they are more like a part of the illusion.
The audience in itself is a single being, a passive object that is both necessary and crucial to the outcome of a great play. In the physical sense, a play is just words and emotions being portrayed on a stage. But in the emotional sense, a play is an experience. An experience for both, the actors and the audience must work together to have a great play. Because a play is not just for the actors, without a great audience who understands the play, there would be no point. Therefore, the more a playwright allows the audience to understand, and feel as though the experience is real-not just words and emotions-the more people will enjoy the show. That is exactly what Thornton Wilder does in Our Town.
Symbolism one way that Wilder made his audiences feel as though they are part of the show. The first key to breaking down the barrier is to make the audience feel as though they are similar to those on stage, to make the viewers able to visualize themselves in the actors situations. “So Im going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone,” said the Stage Manager (Wilder 33). The time capsule is one of the first methods of drawing someone in. To hear the actors on stage talk about the play that they are in makes them look like they are not actors at all, merely ordinary people on a stage. This method makes the audience feel connected because they feel as though they have more in common with that which is happening onstage. Symbolism typically means one literary thing symbolizing another literary feeling, or action. Wilder uses his symbolism to relate to outside things too. For example, the timeline of each act in Our Town is relatively the same; each act goes through a typical day from different time periods. The connection lies in that each day, the people are still carrying out the same daily routine, like normal people, like the audience. To relate an idea or action in the play to an idea or action that the audience might have or do, is one step closer to a better theatrical experience.
More evident than the symbolism in Our Town, the motifs and themes used represent simplicity and can easily relate to anyone. Themes-reoccurring structures that subjectively emphasize certain points and ideas throughout the play-such as simple life, the importance of life, and the artificiality of the theater are all present and contribute to a feeling or experience that people could easily understand. Wilder chose themes that would reinforce the ideas that he wanted to have portrayed in the play.
Simple life is evident throughout the play. Grovers Corner is a small town in New Hampshire where everyone knows everyone and everyone gets along. A small town like this relates to the people watching because the people of the 1940s were not the most wealthy and led simple lives, seeing the idolized people up on stage living in a small town made them feel better about their place in society. Wilder had always been fascinated with the ideas of small town life in his plays, even though he mainly grew up in urban areas (Greasley 533). Wilder then uses a life cycles motif to reinforce the theme of simple life. Life cycles, the relationships of day to day activities, are shown in the play in that all three days the characters are doing the same thing, which shows no excitement in the lifestyles of the actors, making them seem plain. Each act of Our Town begins with the same morning events taking place; the milkman and paperboy bring their deliveries only to have some small talk with their customers, while the mothers and wives are cooking breakfast for their families.
Simplicity is also used through explicit ideas such as the importance of living. Wilder uses fundamental truths about the human existence after drawing his audience in to hit them with the moral lesson that his play is based on. The lesson that people should appreciate life on Earth because it only lasts for so long, after that its all gone (Bordman), is shown through Act III, Death. Incorporating such a lesson into the play, Wilder opens the eyes of the audience, which creates a feeling of macrocosmic importance for ordinary people (Greasley 533). The importance of living connects the viewer to the play itself through a moral bond.
Almost relating too much to real life, Thornton Wilder adds in tools that emphasize the artificiality of the theater to the play. The ways that Wilder emphasizes the artificiality are satirical and sarcastic, like the Stage Manager who goes back and forth between the on-stage action and the audience symbolizes that the action is not real. Also, flashbacks take the audience back in time, preventing us from believing that Our Town is real. These intentional differences show that Wilder acknowledges the surreal nature of the stage, and knowing this brings the audience closer to the events onstage.
Most of the events portrayed in Our Town are very much so common experiences that most people do have at some point in their lifetime, providing for the simplest form of understanding, empathy. As Richard H. Goldstone once wrote, “Much of what happens in Our Town [can] fuse easily into the remembered experiences of the millions for whom the play is an exercise in nostalgia. Just as Wilder looked back thirty odd years to his own childhood, successive generations have looked back and found their own correspondences in the play,” (Goldstone 140).
Thornton Wilder, a pioneer of American literature. Using the former