He also introduces the play and its setting, looking back from his 1930's vantage point to the year when the drama begins, 1901. Called “the stage manager,” who supervises the placement of the chairs and tables at the beginning of the play–hence, his title. Wilder also wrote a narrator into the play. Wilder presented the play in this way to force the audience to concentrate on the characters and the themes. When the milkman makes deliveries from his horse-drawn cart, there is no horse or cart, although the audience may hear clip-clops or whinnies. When looking out an upper-story window, they stand on ladders. When actors dine, they hold imaginary utensils and eat imaginary food.
It is an unconventional work in that it has no scenery or props except for tables, chairs, ladders, and a few other objects. The stage play starred Carol Channing, among others, and the play was later made into the movie of the same name, starring Barbra Streisand.Īs a play, Our Town is one of the most frequently staged American plays. In 1964, Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart adapted The Matchmaker into the 1964 Broadway success Hello, Dolly!, a more streamlined version of what Mr. Wilder wrote the story), which became a short-lived play on Broadway (39 performances), and eventually was re-worked and re-written as The Matchmaker, a comedy filled with mistaken identities, secret rendezvous obscured by screens and hidden behind doors, separated lovers, exciting twists and turns, and a light, bantering tone, a farce that looks like a wild, chaotic romp, however Wilder built The Matchmaker on firm, grounded foundcaton and, despite appearances, Wilder had the farce under control.
Wilder also wrote The Merchant of Yonkers (it's worth reading the how Mr. In later years, when someone asked Thornton Wilder about his purpose in writing THE BRIDGE, he replied that he was posing a question: "Is there a direction and meaning in lives beyond the individual's own will?" Ironically, his quest will lead to his own death.
Brother Juniper, a Franciscan missionary, happens to witness the tragedy, and as a result, he asks the central question of the novel: "Why did this happen to those five?" He sets out to explore the lives of the five victims, and to understand why they died. The plot is deceptively simple: On July 20, 1714, "the finest bridge in all Peru" collapses and five people die. Wilder previously wrote The Bridge of San Luis Rey, his second novel, published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. Our Town is one of the great plays, written by Thornton Wilder with the original title, "Our Town - A Play in 3 acts".
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