Rating: 
Summary: Still a classic!
Review: ... I have recently begun spending time rereading literature that I first read when in school. The question that I posed to myself was whether the "classics" that I had to read in High School or College still met the test of time. I am very pleased that my rereading of Our Town not only met, but exceeded my expectations and memory. In my opinion, plays are the most unread form of literature in America. We are fed a diet of fiction and history, even poetry is more often read and studied than plays. After rereading Our Town it is easy to understand why Wilder won a Pulitzer Prize for this work. Short, only 112 pages, spartan in its set design it left all for the imagination.
This is a play that can be read in a short period of time, and while it seems so simple and easy in Act I, by the end the true depth of meaning has hit the reader. All of the action takes place in the matter of 12 years, almost a generation, and the changes that have taken place in those mere 112 pages have brought us to character involvement, life, birth, death and deeper meanings of why we are here on Earth. Our Town means so much more to me than it did when in school, most likely because I, like the play, have aged and not am at a period of my own life where I can look back and see similar fact patterns. Add to that the maturity of age and Our Town is Still a Classic, a play to be read in school, performed on stage and reread every now and then as we age. In doing that we are able to better understand the characters, the emotions and the fact that there is no set or scenery in our mind and can envision the play however and on whatever level the reader so desires.
Rating:
Summary: One of those that you HAVE to have a copy of...
Review: I first saw this play acted out by my high school's drama class...and I loved it. I read the play earlier this year...and loved it again. It's set in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, and the "stage manager" (narrator) gives you the details of the character's lives. I was glued to this book the entire time...I even cried at the end. Even if you don't like to read plays this is a good one to read. Not only is it one of those books that everyone thinks you should read, it's a good story. I would reccomend this to every high school student who is looking for a break from all the other "literature" we're expected to read, and to everyone else who is just looking for a fairly short, but inspiring read.
Rating:
Summary: The most beautiful thing I have ever read
Review: I love this play. If there is any piece of literature that I wish that I had written, this is it. The play is broken into three acts - the three phases of life. A birth. A wedding. A funeral. Three things that everyone experiences at some point in their lives. With his unique narrative style, Thornton Wilder weaves a story about life in a small town at the turn of the century. Everything is simple, but so wonderfully complicated. The first time I read this play I wept for an hour. I've never read anything outside of the Bible that better sums up the human condition. Anyone with even a shred of humanity will love this play.
Rating:
Summary: As satisfying a read as a novel or a book of poetry
Review: Like many other people who have read this (and loved it!), it was required. Actually, we were required to watch a filmed stage version of it - starring Paul Newman as the Stage Manager. I found it very difficult to watch. I was, along with many other students, very bored watching that production. So, I decided to just read the play. (Reading the play was not required.) It was nothing short of fantastic and amazing. I'm not the kind of person who reads plays and enjoys them. But OUR TOWN read almost like a very reader-friendly novel. And its themes of birth, life, and death have a tendency to reach out and grab the reader like few books I have ever come across. I will definitely be reading this again.
Rating: 
Summary: Getting better and better
Review: Our Town is not just a usual play, it's a play in a play! The stage manager leads us through the performance by giving us information about the little village of Grover's Corner and its inhabitants. Even if I found his speeches and monologues a bit too long, I can say that I liked the book as a whole. Reading it gave me new points of view of our life. I would say it's a play dedicated to life. We should appreciate every moment of it and care for our family and friends, that's the message Thornton Wilder wants to give us. I can recommend it to anybody who doesn't stop reading a book if he doesn't find it thrilling after the first few pages! It's one of the books that are getting better and better the longer you keep on reading. So read it!
Rating:
Summary: Clean and spare
Review: Our Town is, i would guess, the most produced stage play in america. You need no props,no singing,no dancing.It introduced of place,Grovers Corners,N.H. into the lexicon. The play though first produced in the late 1930's takes place in the early part of the 20th century. It tells the tale of two families, the Gibbs and the webbs,in love life and death{Wilder never skirted the issue of death in his writings>}Its timlessness lies in the essence of wilders writings: how the simple ,the mundane taken together make us who we are, and how important the quotidian chores of daily existence are. The heartfelt exclamtion near the end of the play asking if human beings ever realize thier lives before it ends? followed by the wise narrator's some saints and poets has stayed with me since childhood. An easy read, though not a simple one.Is this the great american play? Who knows.It is certainly great and good,and stands up very well almost 70 years later. Essential reading,on anyones list.
Rating:
Summary: Misunderstood classic
Review: Superficially a folksy, American nostalgia piece, "Our Town" spans the first thirteen years of the twentieth century in the life of Grover's Corners, a small village in rural New Hampshire. It's the archetypal town of the American Mythology: a place where the names on the oldest gravestones are the same as those of the townspeople today; where the doctor delivers twins before breakfast, and is home in time to shoot the breeze with the paperboy; where the kids share an ice-cream soda, their mothers sing in the church choir, and a girl grows up and really does marry the boy nextdoor. The play's fond recollection of an America that never existed was nostalgic even in 1938, yet Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama became an instant classic and remains one of America's most loved and frequently performed plays. America today is the shambles of a destroyed hope, the stillborn ruins of the way of life "Our Town" imagines but which in reality was never achieved. For those immune to the appeals of the American Dream, or more familiar with the reality of the American Global Empire, the play may seem deliciously rich in unintended irony. You could be forgiven for thinking the American preference for escapist, self-aggrandizing fantasy might account for its enduring appeal. Yet you would be wrong. Scratch the surface and "Our Town" is no quaint tale of hayseed family life. Wilder was an intellectual, an admirer of the avant-garde and the experimental works of James Joyce. Steadfastly minimalist in its presentation, engagingly postmodern in its insistence that we see the cast as actors rather than characters, and more thematically challenging than we are initially led to expect, "Our Town" is a work of social criticism which indicts us with personal responsibility for the way we see our lives. Wilder turns our nostalgia against us, demolishing our vision of the past as a Golden Age, and demanding we live here and now, simply and fully. The play shows ordinary lives in pursuit of universal meaning, and by confronting us with our own mortality it challenges us to explore our small allotment of years in the same way. This isn't so much a play of memories as a play about memory - private and public. It evokes nostalgia to warn against it, and argues instead for an acceptance of transience, a celebration of life while it is lived, and a recognition of that small, unknowable fragment of the self that is eternal. It's with this universalizing, evident in the final act, that "Our Town" transcends twentieth-century America and becomes an enduringly relevant work of art - one about memory, fantasy, and the power and price of both.
Rating:
Summary: Misunderstood classic
Review: Superficially a folksy, American nostalgia piece, "Our Town" spans the first thirteen years of the twentieth century in the life of Grover's Corners, a small village in rural New Hampshire. It's the archetypal town of the American Mythology. A place where the names on the oldest gravestones are the same as those of the townspeople today. Where the doctor delivers twins before breakfast, and is home in time to shoot the breeze with the paperboy. Where the kids share an ice-cream soda, their mothers sing in the church choir, and a girl grows up and really does marry the boy nextdoor. The play's fond recollection of an America that never existed was nostalgic even in 1938, yet Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama became an instant classic and remains one of America's most loved and frequently performed plays. America today is the shambles of a destroyed hope, the stillborn ruins of the way of life "Our Town" imagines but which in reality was never achieved. For those immune to the appeals of the American Dream, or more familiar with the reality of the American Global Empire, the play may seem deliciously rich in unintended irony. You could be forgiven for thinking the American preference for escapist, self-aggrandizing fantasy might account for its enduring appeal. Yet you would be wrong. Scratch the surface and "Our Town" is no quaint tale of hayseed family life. Wilder was an intellectual, an admirer of the avant-garde and the experimental works of James Joyce. Steadfastly minimalist in its presentation, engagingly postmodern in its insistence that we see the cast as actors rather than characters, and more thematically challenging than we are initially led to expect, "Our Town" is a work of social criticism which indicts us with personal responsibility for the way we see our lives. Wilder turns our nostalgia against us, demolishing our vision of the past as a Golden Age, and demanding we live here and now, simply and fully. The play shows ordinary lives in pursuit of universal meaning, and by confronting us with our own mortality it challenges us to explore our small allotment of years in the same way. This isn't so much a play of memories as a play about memory - private and public. It evokes nostalgia to warn against it, and argues instead for an acceptance of transience, a celebration of life while it is lived, and a recognition of that small, unknowable fragment of the self that is eternal. It's with this universalizing, evident in the final act, that "Our Town" transcends twentieth-century America and becomes an enduringly relevant work of art - one about memory, fantasy, and the power and price of both.
Rating:
Summary: Review of Thorton Wilder's Our Town
Review: The play Our Town is a fantastic book full of conflict and adventure. It teaches its readers about life and what to do in certain situations. Thorton Wilder did a great job in conducting this play. I had it on one of my summer reading lists for my school and I absolutely adored it. Our Town definately deserves to be preserved over time because it teaches people much about the past.
Rating:
Summary: It's a Poignant Life!
Review: This beloved classic and most frequently performed of Wilder's dramatic works still charms and captivates--despite the decades since its first production in 1938. A simple story, kaleidescopic time (both between and within Acts), basic family values and the modest joys of small town life are the literary elements offered to readers and theatre-goers. Scorning nobles and tradionally heroic figures, Wilder presents ordinary people in the early 20th century--a kinder, gentler time when horses were being phased out in favor of automobiles. But writers will always cherish the natural progression of the seasons of human existence. Why are audiences fascinated by the normal,
typical routine in rural New England; what explains the
timeless appeal of this simply-plotted story in three acts: Daily Life, Marriage, Death and Aftermath. Perhaps we are
haunted by the way the Dead (characters in Act 3) speak about and feel for the Living. Do the residents of the graveyard on the hill reveal painful truths about human life and asperations on earth? Why do the Dead mock those still living as blind and ignorant? What are they patiently, quietly waiting for in their
peaceful plots? Is Life just a waste of time, a farce during which we fool ourselves into believing in our own importance?
This tale of Americana belongs to all people, regardless of national origin--by virtue of its poignant insight into the human heart.
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