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Summary: A book that spans generations
Review: Thornton Wilder's Our Town is an inspiring play about the joy of life. The play depicts the lives of "ordinary people" in the fictional New Hampshire town of Grover's Corners. The play is set in three acts, each representing a different aspect of life entitled daily life, love and marriage, and death. Wilder sets the stage with nothing but two tables and chairs in order to establish the universality of the play. From there, you are transported to a world very similar to your own and watch the lives of two families and a town come together through hardships and happiness. Wilder's love for the past shows through as the setting is in the early 1900's. The play continues as the children of the two families grow up and experience all of the joys and sorrows of life. In the third act, the theme of death is prevalent. The third act pulls together the loose ends created in the first two acts in a philosophical way. A passage from the play that really sums up what Wilder was trying to get across is "Do human beings ever realize life while they live it?--every, every minute?" The characters in the play realize in the end that people rush through life not taking the time to enjoy every minute of it. They don't just stop and look around at the people, at the scenery, and at the world. Wilder's purpose in writing this novel was to inform people of just that, to live each day to the fullest and have no regrets when it's all over and you look back over your life. I recommend this play for anyone who rushes through life without enjoying the simple pleasures. It is short, it reads fast, but most of all, it says something that everyone needs to hear at one point in their life.
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Summary: Very good book
Review: I really Like this book. I think to understand life, u need to read this book.I think about my life in a new way since i read this book.I hope all people read this book.
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Summary: Take Advantage
Review: All I can say is to take advantage of life, read this book, and cherish every minute we have on this planet! This book will make you realize what it is like to realize you have been spoiled rotten.
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Summary: Our Town: a return to where we never were
Review: Does Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" refer to the home town of the State Manager and the characters, or does it refer to the home of the audience? I believe it's both.The play was written in 1938. America was still in the Depression. and people longed for an escape. In the opinion of many film historians, black and white movie-making was at its peak, and its escapes were many. Viewers could see "poor" families who owned two-story houses and had servants; action-adventures heroes who survived cliff-hangers every Saturday; great romances filled with more passion than you could ever see anywhere else; and wartime explosions and gun battles which were still something to flock to on the big screen and avoid in real life. But "Our Town" was none of that. Like the Andy Hardy movie series that began before it and Archie who in comic books was to follow it, ironically in December 1941, it portrayed small town Americana. It was a return to the simple, safe, hometown America that many remembered and no one ever really lived in. But "Our Town" was also very different. The "realism" that began on stage and then permeated the movie theaters after the experimental days of the pre-Depression wasn't there. The fourth wall had been created, and now was destroyed. Here was a Stage Manager who spoke directly to the audience, skipped through time, told us what had already happened when it would occur years after the scene we were watching, and even brought the dead back to life, at least for a moment. The form was odd for its time (although in some ways not so different from the presentational, minimal set theatre of Shakespeare's days.) Had the subject matter been two strange people waiting for a no-show Godot, it might have died in obscurity, perhaps to be resurrected years later. But here were characters everyone knew or imagined they did, at least if they were fourth generation Caucasian. Everyone's mother was there, and father, and brother and sister, and milkman and newsboy and boyfriend and girlfriend and husband and wife. In fact, they could see themselves. The characters represented the past everyone imagined they had. The limited suspension of disbelief required in the first two acts and oddly in the third act still made real one important message: it is the small things in life, the trivial, everyday things that are really important. Ironically, Wilder seemed to argue against his own thesis, showing in the third act how the dead would forget the trivialities and even major events of life and move on. But as we saw when one character relived and then couldn't stand to relive her 12th birthday, the important things in life are a mother's hug, milk delivered to your door, and "food and coffee--and new-ironed dresses and hot baths..." (Act III). As the poet and wise man Solomon said in the biblical book of "Ecclesiastes," power and great wealth are nothing but "vanity" and meaningless, and the important thing is to "eat, drink and be merry." I believe the theme of the play is best stated in that same scene in Our Town, when the dead character in wonder proclaims, "oh earth, you're too wonderful for anyone to realize you" (ibid). Anyone except "saints and poets maybe" (ibid). The theme is also reflected in one of the most famous lines spoken in one of the most famous movies of the very next year, the 1939 "Wizard of Oz." After Dorothy flew from her grey home to drop into a wonderful world of color, she returned to find her family, life and farm had really been colorful all along. She learned, and we all felt, that indeed "there's no place like home."
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Summary: Our Town
Review: this is a very stupid play, i cant understand it, it makes me feel stupid that i say that i need cliffnotes . the cliffnotes are very good for thes people if they need to study for Our Town for exams/finals.
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Summary: A story about daily life, marriage and death
Review: Our Town is a play about a little town called Grover's Corners in New Hampshire before the Great Wars. Thornton Wilder is expressing the athmosphere in this town with humor and warmth. He wants to tell us, that there's no need in looking back. You should always look forward into the future. The mean idea of the play is the question about eternal life. Wilder is explaining this question in the third act.
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Summary: A classic!
Review: This play is very moving. It teaches how important the things we take for granted really are. I cannot understand all the reviewers who disliked this play so much because even if they did find it somewhat boring, it only takes about an hour to read: not much of a loss. Maybe one day they will understand the meaning of this play and realize that it truly is a classic. Because it is so short, I'm not going to bother with a plot synopsis. All I can say is: give it a chance.
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Summary: (0 stars) Dreck! The worst play in the world!
Review: I don't think I could have hated a play more than this. How on earth did it gain so much attention? It wasn't that it was dull or boring. It was more so that I just hated the way it was written. The "stage manager"? I don't get it. One rule in plays that I tend to try to follow is, show don't tell. This play was just always telling us how people felt, they never showed it. I even saw it, to give it a chance. I wanted to walk out I thought it was the worst piece of writing I had ever witnessed, but I paid good money for the ticket, so I stayed. YUCK, YUCK, YUCK! Our Town was DRECK!
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Summary: this book has no plot
Review: this book is terrible and has no plot it is just some stupid stage maneger talking the whole time
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Summary: Our Town - What a masterpiece
Review: The classic, Pulitzer Prize winning play Our Town was written by Thornton Wilder. Our Town takes place in a small town in New Hampshire named Grovers Corner and is set in the early 1900's. This play shows how life really was in the early twienth century. It also shows the trials and tribulations of a small town. Examples of this is Mrs. Webb having to deal with her daughter, Emily, getting married and George dealing with Emily's death. Some descriptions of the characters is that George is a young man who will do anything to accomplish his goals and ambitions. He has alot of goals such as being a farmer and getting married to Emily. Emily is a young woman who is very smart and she tries her hardest at everything she does. Emily seems to be a very nice and open minded person. Dr. Gibbs is a middle aged man who is willing to help anyone and everyone. Dr. Gibbs seems to be a very good man who never takes a break from work and has many ambitions. One part of the play that helps you understand the play is the part of the stagemanager. The stagemanager knows almost everything about the town. He also gives you details of events that happened in the past and what is happening at that moment in the town of Grovers Corners. This book is very easy to understand. You know that Dr. Gibbs is obviously the only doctor in town, that Emily is one of the brightest girls in her class, and that George really likes Emily. While reading it you will really get into the story, and you wont be able to stop reading it. You may even find yourself acting out some of the scenes. This play is classified as a drama as it tells of Emily as a young child, to marriage, and then ultimately to her death. This play is also a drama because it expresses love, happiness, sadness, and even hate. Every act skips a few years to just show how people change, the town changes, and just how life changes. Our Town is really a good piece of work. I believe anyone who reads this book will really enjoy it. Our Town really portrays life as it really is.
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