On my lunch breaks I’ve been reading Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. I’m not quite sure why it’s a classic, except that it is classically boring. This is really supposed to be the definitive American play? Really? People live and marry and die? Really? It’s a bit too sugary for my taste. If I have to read about the Stage Manager smiling warmly at the audience one more time, I think I might toss my invisible cookies (all stage props are imagined, remember. How novel!) I wonder if it really is in a time capsule somewhere as Wilder intended. I pity the souls of the future who dig this one up.
I guess to save face I should mention that I haven’t finished reading the third act yet. Maybe something incredible happens (besides more life, marriage and death, that is.) If so, consider this my advance withdrawal of above statement. Here here.
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At one point when I was a teenager in rural America, my family decided we should start attending local plays. This idea didn’t last very long, but we got to see “Arsenic & Old Lace”, “Our Town” and a few others before we had too much excitement. You might want to keep reading “Our Town” to the end, Bea; forgive me if I’ve got this mixed-up with some other play, but if I remember correctly the end of “Our Town” actually has everyone on the cast inside invisible body-casts and they figure-out that the postman once trained with ninjas! “No way!” Then, there’s an uproarious imaginary car-chase finale! At curtain call, everyone in our audience spontaneously mounted their theater seats, fists in air, chanting the Arsenio Hall show’s “war whoop” for a full five minutes! You should prepare yourself for some “unforgettable zaniness.”