Town by Thornton Wilder Uses Essay

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By capturing the these seemingly simple values in the life of a "typical" American small town, Wilder was telling a profound story that exploded the accepted norms of drama and in one explosion catapulted the American play from the nineteenth century to the twentieth via the chautauqua esque visage. This is why it is a mistake to typecast Wilder as a traditionalist. Rather he was a modernist that translated Asian and European ideas into the American idiom via drama (ibid, xv).

Wilder's experience of this style of drama came about as he was influenced by the economy of the storytelling of Noh drama. This drama style boldly compressed a huge time span into a short period of time with a minimum of scenery (ibid, xvi). This gives it an appeal that is beyond just the American experience. The popularity of the play around the world attests to the play having universal human appeal that is much greater than just the American experience.

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Indeed, it captures the universal experience of being alive (ibid, xvii).

To recap, the minimalism of Wilder's "Our Town" gives it a maximalist quality that is a product of the very visual and dramatic quality that makes up the geography of the play. It forces the actors to concentrate on the acting and to relate to the audience on a real level. This is especially important in the twenty-first century in our era of special effects and cinema fakery of avatars and computer generated effects. It makes us appreciate the acting and script and forces script writers to do this as well. All of this attests to the continuing appeal an influence of "Our Town" more than eighty years after Thornton Wilder wrote it.

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