Compare And Contrast Thornton Wilders

‘Our Town’ Essay, Research Paper

STAGE MANAGER: This is the way we were in the provinces north of New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. – This is the way we were. – Thornton Wilder, Our Town Compare and contrast the way in which two modern American dramatists present the past. Our Town, written by Thornton Wilder in 1938, is a patriotic tale about small-town American life before the First World War. This classic play traces the simple, wholesome lives of two families, the Gibbses and the Webbs, and represents their daily lives, marriage and death, staged without scenery, narrated by a Stage Manager. His rhetorical style of lyrical dialogue and “extended speeches full of vivid imagery or highly rhythmic phrases, sometimes approaching the intensity and musicality of verse drama”, complemented by non-naturalistic staging has influenced writers such as Tennessee Williams. While Brooks Atkinson has called this text a “hauntingly beautiful play”, others have criticised it for displaying a sentimental view of American past, perpetuating the nation’s myths about itself. Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, published in 1945, uses expressionist devices such as poetic language, undisguised verbal and physical symbols, and an operative mode of suggestion in order to present the lives of the Wingfield family in Depression era St. Louis. In determining whether Wilder and Williams present an idealised vision of an American past, it is fundamental to examine their use of realism versus expressionism and the concept of alienation within the text. One must also investigate the didactic elements of these texts in order to assess whether these are ideological texts encouraging conservatism, or radical plays promoting social change. In his preface to the play, Wilder attacks naturalistic, museum showcase drama of the 1920’s, such as Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms, claiming that he “began to feel that the theatre was not only inadequate, it was evasive… The tragic had no heat; the comic had no bite; the social criticism failed to indict us with responsibility.” Wilder has attempted to restore realism to the theatre, and one co uld argue that this is through the utilisation of anti-illusionary devices. The concept of alienation is fundamental to the way in which we as the audience read the play. For example, if the dominant theme within these plays is that the past was positive, and that conservative values should therefore be retained, and we are encouraged to become emotionally involved in the action, we may absorb these values. If however, we are alienated from the drama by the use of anti-illusionary devices, even if the dominant theme is one of nostalgia, we may be made to regard this with cynicism. Wilder’s first form of alienation within Our Town is the use of narration throughout the play. The Stage Manager plays a fundamental role in setting the scene from the beginning: “This play is called Our Town. It was written by Thornton Wilder…” In much the same way that Bertolt Brecht utilises narration within plays such as Caucasian Chalk Circle, in order to create audience alienation, it could be argued that the Stage Manager serves to remind the audience that they are in an artificial setting. However, while Brecht prevents the audience from being lulled into a false sense of emotion, Wilder promotes the audience to become involved in the action: Stage Manager: Now is there anyone in the audience who would like to ask Editor Webb anything about the town. Although the audience is reminded that they are in a theatre, they are encouraged in become involved in the story, therefore losing their subjectivity. We, the audience, are seduced into the illusion that we too are townspeople. Tennessee Williams in The Glass Menagerie also employs narration within his text through his central character, Tom, who introduces the setting of the play: Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion. In this context, the audience is offered a glimpse into the life of the Wingfields while at the same time being distanced from the poignant action through Tom’s ironic narration. In his production notes to The Glass Menagerie, Williams outlines the importance of expressionism within his plays: Expressionism and all other unconventional techniques in drama have only one valid aim, and that is a closer approach to truth. When a play employs unconventional techniques, it is not, or certainly shouldn’t be, trying to escape its responsibility of dealing with reality, or interpreting experience, but is actually or should be attempting to find a closer approach, a more penetrating and vivid expression of things as they are. This attempt to find a closer approach to truth is otlined in Tom’s opening speech: Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. Alienation is also created through the utilisation of flashbacks and time lapses within the two texts. One example of this is in the final scene of Our Town, when the deceased Emily travels back in time, reliving her childhood to discover that “it goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another.” Similarly, The Glass Menagerie involves the use of flashbacks; the play is narrated by Tom in the present, years after the dramatized action, and his relation