to engage more deeply with the narrative itself. As Wilder put it, these elements served as "scenery for those who think they have to have scenery."

Perhaps most strikingly, Wilder introduced the Stage Manager, a character who breaks the fourth wall by narrating the story, commenting on the action, and addressing the audience directly. This character operates within and beyond the constraints of time, offering insights on past, present, and future events. As Ruby Cohn articulates in her book Currents in Contemporary Drama, "The Stage Manager in Our Town functions much like an omnipresent author in a novel." This dual role emphasizes the fiction of the play while grounding it in the reality of human experience.

Classical Influences and Structural Unity

Wilder's deep roots in classical education are evident in Our Town, particularly through the play's structural elements that echo Greek drama. The Stage Manager resembles a Greek chorus, an impartial observer who guides the audience's interpretations and reactions to the unfolding drama. This character also reinforces the moral undertones that permeate the narrative.

Wilder's adherence to the classical unities of time, place, and action further connects Our Town to its ancient predecessors. While the play spans more than a single day, it can be interpreted as encapsulating the essence of one day, beginning at dawn and concluding at night. This reflects the unity of time, as does the unity of place, in which all action occurs in the fictional town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. The unity of action is upheld by the play's tight focus on a singular narrative thread, free from the distractions of subplots.

In blending these experimental techniques and classical elements, Wilder crafted a play that challenges audiences to look beyond the literal and delve into the universal themes of life, mortality, and community. Our Town stands as a testament to the power of theater to both innovate and honor tradition, inviting audiences to witness the beauty and complexity of the everyday while engaging with timeless questions about human existence.

Turn of the Century: At the turn of the century, the majority of schoolteachers were women. If they wished to marry, like Joe Crowell's teacher in Act One, they were required to leave their teaching jobs. In rural areas, teachers often resided with local families during the academic year.

1930s: During the Great Depression, as unemployment soared, teaching became a sought-after profession for both single and married women. More men began teaching, particularly in higher grade levels. Rural regions still relied on one-room or two-room schoolhouses.

Today: Women continue to outnumber men in the teaching field. Salaries have improved, allowing individuals to support their families on a teacher's income. Many rural communities have consolidated their schools with neighboring towns to form regional schools.

Turn of the Century: People lived and worked in close proximity, with no location being too far to walk. The horse and buggy served as the main form of transportation.

1930s: Cars replaced the horse and buggy as the dominant means of transport. The Great Depression led to the closure of once-flourishing mills and factories in small New England towns, compelling residents to either relocate or travel for work.

Today: Thousands commute daily into Boston from small towns in southern New Hampshire. Some drive on multi-lane highways for nearly two hours each way, while others take a train from nearby stations to complete their journey into the city.

Turn of the Century: It was uncommon for women to work outside the home. As the Stage Manager notes in his opening monologue for Act Two: "both those ladies cooked three meals a day— one of 'em for twenty years, the other for forty— and no summer vacation. They brought up two children apiece, washed, cleaned the house— and nevera nervous breakdown."

1930s: While most women were mothers and housewives, the harsh economic conditions of the Great Depression necessitated that anyone who could work did so. Just three years after Our Town premiered, the onset of World War II saw thousands of women taking up factory jobs as men went off to fight.

Today: More women are part of the workforce than ever before. Families manage the work schedules of parents and children. Take-out meals have largely replaced home-cooked family dinners, and watching TV during meals has supplanted traditional dinner table conversations.

Grover's Corners, the fictional setting of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," serves as a microcosm of early 20th-century American life. Through the imaginative descriptions provided by the stage manager, the town transforms into a vivid tapestry of daily rituals and intimate moments. This tale unfolds not through elaborate scenery but through the evocative power of words, inviting each audience member into a shared yet personal vision of life in this small New Hampshire town.

Grover’s Corners

Grover’s Corners is depicted with precision by the stage manager, who provides latitude and longitude details, locating it "just across the Massachusetts line." Despite its fictional status, these coordinates help ground the audience in a tangible place. The stage manager paints a picture of a typical morning sky, suggesting cinematic "streaks of light" with a morning star still visible, creating an image that transcends what mere stage scenery could achieve. Through his narrative, the audience navigates the town as if gliding through its streets, observing the heavens above, the bustling communities, and the everyday locales like shops and schools. This narrative approach underscores the town's essence, allowing the audience to see beyond the physical to the shared human experiences within.

Main Street

Main Street serves as the bustling core of Grover's Corners, where the pulse of daily life is felt most keenly. It is a space where every character treads at some point, contributing to the town’s rhythm. This street becomes particularly poignant during Emily Webb's return visit to earth, where even the routine activities, such as Howie Newsome's milk delivery, resonate with emotional depth. Emily delights in the sounds of familiar voices, such as Constable Warren's and Joe Crowell Jr.'s, reminding her of the seemingly mundane yet precious details of her past life.

Gibbs and Webb Houses

The homes of George Gibbs and Emily Webb are represented on stage with minimal props—merely tables and chairs—encouraging audiences to focus on the internal lives of the characters rather than their physical environments. When the stage manager first introduces these homes, the stage is in "half-light," emphasizing the importance of imagination over literal representation. As Emily revisits her childhood home in the third act, even the basic furnishings vanish, aligning with Wilder’s assertion that "our claim, our hope, our despair are in the mind—not in things, not in ‘scenery.’” The lack of traditional scenery invites the audience to delve deeper into the emotional and philosophical layers of the narrative.

Morgan’s Drugstore

Morgan’s drugstore, a central gathering place for the town's youth, is crafted from two simple chairs and a board, illustrating the play's ethos of minimalism. This pharmacy and soda shop is more than a mere setting; it is a space where pivotal moments unfold. Here, George and Emily express their mutual desires, setting the trajectory for their shared future. The simplicity of the set underscores that the significance of this location lies not in its physicality, but in the meaningful interactions it hosts.

Cemetery

The cemetery on the hill becomes a serene final resting place, central to the play's exploration of life and death. The stage manager describes it as lying beneath "lots of sky, lots of clouds,—often lots of sun and moon and stars," enveloped by lilacs and mountain laurel. His musings highlight the cemetery's tranquil beauty, contrasting it with urban burial places like Brooklyn, and posing an implicit question about where one might prefer to spend eternity. Wilder uses the cemetery's setting to reflect on the transience of life, suggesting that the absence of tangible scenery allows the audience to fill in the details with their own reflections and emotions.

Throughout "Our Town," Wilder's use of minimalistic staging serves a crucial purpose. It shifts the focus from concrete visuals to the existential themes woven into the everyday lives of Grover's Corners’ inhabitants. By challenging the audience to engage their imaginations, Wilder ensures that the experience of the town becomes a deeply personal and introspective journey, unique to each viewer. Through this approach, Grover's Corners emerges not merely as a setting, but as a canvas for exploring universal human experiences and emotions.

Further Reading

Ballet, Arthur H. "In Our Living and In Our Dying" in English Journal, Vol XLV, no. 5, May 1956, pp. 243-49. This essay by Ballet explores Our Town and its connections to classical tragedy.

Brown, John Mason. "Wilder's 'Our Town'" in his Dramatis Personae: A Retrospective Show, Viking, 1963, pp. 79-84. Known as a prominent drama critic and editor for the Saturday Review during the 1940s, Brown penned several critical analyses of American theater. In this evaluation of Our Town, originally written in 1938 and later included in his book Dramatis Personae (1963), he applauds Wilder's decision to avoid contemporary political and social themes while commending his depiction of essential human experiences like death, love, and time's passage.

Discovering Authors: Modules, Gale, 1996. This CD-ROM and online publication provides biographical and critical insights on Thornton Wilder, along with hundreds of other authors. Particularly valuable are the hypertext links to critical essays.

Johns, Sally. "Thornton Wilder" in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 7: Twentieth Century American Dramatists, edited by John MacNicholas, Gale, 1981, pp. 304-19. This article offers a comprehensive overview of Wilder's career, with a focus on his impact on American theater.

Miller, Arthur. "The Family in Modern Drama" in the Atlantic Monthly, Vol 197, no. 4, April 1956, pp. 35-41. Known for works like Death of a Salesman (1949) and The Crucible (1953), Miller is considered one of the most significant American playwrights post-World War II. In his essay, he praises Our Town as a poetic piece that successfully connects everyday life with "the generality of men which is our society and our world."