OUR TOWN

THEMES

- bravery, kindliness, goodness of Am people - 38:7- sermon in praise of infinite richness of simplicity - 38:12- heartbreaking insight into what is common in all our living - 38:16- captures mind and spirit of the country - 38:25- movingly evokes way of life lost in present turmoil but good to remember - 38:51- experience arrested, imprisoned, vicariously felt; perspec of death gives poignancy - 38:53- seems to ignore all problems except physical growing and passing away - 38:80- fails to show unpleasant sides of small-town life - 38:92- too gentle to be epic, too sad to be tragic, but too genuine to be forgotten - 39:19- focuses on soc, spiritual, material backbone of the land - 40:1- universal reverie; touches us whether we’re from New England or Texas - 40:2- shows too much love for death; picture has no depth; chars are zestless zombies - 40:7- cycle of human experience from birth to death - 40:9- eternal human problems - 47:15- paradoxically, makes emotional case for actuality by denying time and space -59:21- engages imagination only at most superficial, obv level; exalts unexamined life - 59:32- universal appeal - 59:43- appeals to audiences of all sorts - 60:19- all his plays are about the day of judgment; all his chars emblems of reality - 62:7- regionless regionalism - 64:8- endorses middle-class domesticity; sends auds away feeling more smug than ever - 69:33- says we waste our lives, but also suggests all’s well with world - 69:21- rather too pretty portrait of small town; lacks robustness and merde - 69:27- endorses past against urban present; was always dated - 69:34- theater as metaphor; lyric affirmation of life in pre-indus soc - 70:7- second-hand notions of time, death, universe - 70:24- smugly self-congratulatory presentation of US - 71:6- whimsical avoidance of depth and particularity - 71:9- closest it comes to evil is tipsy choir-master; fails to suggest sublime in commonplace - 75:33- succeeds in placing stamp of value and continuity on everyday life - 75:33- deals with man in broad sense, not limited - 83:6- only absence of personalized hero prevents it from being a great modern tragedy - 83:6- brevity of life, death’s shadow, need to live every moment to fullest - 89:6

- affirms both higher and lower, spirit and flesh, esp in wedding - b93- tragic waste, blindness, ignorance - b94- town a microcosm; hero life itself; acted on by time, nature, death; instinct, love, etc - b95- love the highest law - b95- tragedy is failure to love every moment - b96- religious festival celebrating life - b96

- town symbolizes civilized human life everywhere - b97

- no mist of feeling, no rel sentiment, no attempt to assign high signif - c88

- new england chosen bec of roots in trad; pre-wwI to show era before war, industrialism - k129

- W thought idea of being perfect was a uniquely american obsessions - Bl.31- absence of awareness in the living - Bl.31- family play that deals with trad fam fighures - Bl.40- chars less individuals than forces - Bl.41- man’s unhappiness caused by failure to delight in beauty of ordinary existence - Bl.47

STYLE

- not dramatic; better in print than on stage; last act seems stilted, affected, pretentious - 38:3- poignant, affecting, but innovations add nothing to its value - 38:9- witty, touching, wise - 38:12- gentleness, wisdom, humor - 38:16- speeches psychologically true to chars - 38:28- absence of scenery, use of lights express romantic, mystical content - 38:34- devoid of developed situations; hence one vast blur of kindly sentiment - 38:35- uneven; sometimes asks too much of spectator; too many exact descriptions of imag objects-38:43- talent for humor, simplicity, moderation, story-telling, characterization - 38:45- stunt that sometimes combusts bec of sentimental chemicals, but a stunt still - 38:60- hopelessly slow - 38:76- well-written stunt; lacks all but atmospheric unity - 38:96- dialogues and esp monologues delicately and truly written; chars in 1st 2 acts well conceived-38:96- Russians banned from Germany; too depressing; cd spark suicide wave - 46:2- slow moving; lack of scenery not simplicity but an affectation - 46:10- W’s humor can range from faintly ironic to uproarious - 46:15- not sentimental; organic whole; fuses past, present, natural, supernatural; a hymn - 53:11- probable debt to Joyce - 53:11- monodrama in which actors illustrate running monologue addressed to aud -58:23- tendency to be overly didactic - 58:24- seriously criticized for lacking unity in style; 3rd act an abrupt break - 58:27- stage manager an undisguised lecturer; reps limited point of vw - 59:19- runs risk of all allegory of reducing complexity to imposed scheme - 59:21- grafts onto stage many virtues of novel; not a play but a novel galvanized - 59:29- outstanding tragedy; Emily a tragic fig of enormous dimensions - 59:36- quiet dignity - 59:43- an experiment in making the typical particular and the particular typical - 60:33- sentimental comedy; mingles pathos, humor, nostalgia in innocuous combo - 62:80- sentimentality; too didactic - 64:19

- structurally weak script - 68:9- achieves alienation of the aud not by pranks but thru cred chars and by being utterly candid-68:23- direct statements sometimes seem pretentious; yet play often fresh and vivid - 69:3- play darker, stronger than it seems at first; W a pessimist as cold and tough as they come - 69:13- foggy nostalgia - 69:18- Oriental stage techniques - 69:27- shows how some chars rely on and become cliches; gain stature when they realize this - 69:29- studied naivete - 70:7- town a labored fabrication; norman rockwell - 70:24- seems sentimental, nostalgic but is actually grim and pessimistic - 75:22- reminiscent of Joyce’s The Dead - 87:5- deadly cynical and acidly accurate play; sometimes played sentimental - 87:17- rich humor and humanity, joy and lyricism - 88:3- sobering rathan sentimental - 89:6

- manager like chorus: comments, takes part, serves as author’s mouthpiece - b89- like property man in chinese drama - b89- diff temporal perspectives to enhance our sense of value of common life - b90- avoids bathos; depends on fresh methods; appeals to nostalgia - b91- scenes present an increasingly broad persp of time and space - b92- colloq lang in act 3 has been criticized but seems apt, consistent - b94

- rooted in theme rathan dram movement - c86- daily life, love and marriage, death focus of 3 acts - c86- affinities to folk art - c86- little emph on complex shading or char motivation - c87- lang almost bone dry; not sentimental - c88- mars last scene w/ hokum abts stars and human aspirations; too didactic - b90- builds up design from simple physical details, like hemingway - b91- abstraction, flattening, distortion - b91- emily’s didactic speeches not allowed to spoil play - b91- american localism is now eroding w’s stature among his contemps - b92

- rejects dram realism of o’neill - k125- manner of brecht; breaks illusion - k131- covers 9 years; begins at dawn, ends at night; fams united then divided - k133- observes classical unities; no subplot; morning-to-evening suggests unity of time - k133-34- banal dialogue; lack of characterization: both contribute to timeless, universal - k134- episodes arranged to suggest haphazard, zig-zag motion of life - k134- play saved from cloying sentimentality by sense of distance; still-life quality - k135- attempts to avoid pretty, folksy, cute, tearful - k137

- stage manger’s speeches inspired by Euripides - Si132- T thought that in great ages of theater there was least scenery - Si136

- merits: humor, simplicity, moderation, story-telling, characterization - Si143- SM’s commentary mixes past, present, future - Bl.30- if chars had been more individualized, play might have seemed sentimental - Bl.42- W doesn’t try to insist that he presents reality iself - Bl.46