Drama Criticism | Our Town, Thornton Wilder - Winfield Townley Scott (essay date 1961)

Winfield Townley Scott (essay date 1961)

SOURCE: Scott, Winfield Townley. “The Charm of Our Town.” In Readings on Our Town, edited by Thomas Siebold, pp. 148-54. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000.

[In the following essay, originally published in 1961, Scott asserts that the tone of understatement in Our Town contributes to its universal appeal.]

As Our Town literally begins, Wilder sets in motion the little wheel of daily doings. This is the only wheel there is in most plays and fictions; it turns upon the events presented. So here, it spins with normal activities, the comings and goings and the conversations, weaving a special era and place and a particular people (though by the way I think Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Webb should not be stringing beans in early May in New Hampshire); and on through a gentle afternoon to the great moonlighted night of that May 7 and the ladies strolling chattering home from choir...

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