PLAY IDEA WORKSHEET & VIEWING & READING OUR TOWN

Carly Kelly

February 23, 2021

Our Town Response

THR 101

“Our Town” is a play about a small town in New Hampshire. In the beginning of the play, the narrator talks about how when we learn about places in history, we learn about the big events only, but not about the people, how they lived their everyday lives, etc... The goal of this play was to give an insight on the people in the small town, their stories, and simply teach others about this town. Other than the narrator of the play, the characters consisted of citizens of the town: Dr. And Mrs. Gibbs and their children George and Rebecca, Mr. And Mrs. Webb and their children Emily and Wally, and some other side characters that help out carry out the narrative. The main character of the play is the narrator, as it is his story to tell about the history of the town, he walks us through the stages of the lives of George Gibbs and Emily Webb, who are a romantic couple in the story. George and Emily are teenagers that know each other from school in the play and end up getting married in the play. They are the most important characters in this play, but it also includes their siblings, their parents, the choir teacher in the town, and citizens of the town. This play says to the audience that although Grovers Corner isn’t a large town, with no remarkable attributes, it still had real people living real lives, and its legacy should live on.

The narrator of the play speaks in a very ominous way, while the parents in this play have very stern tones with their children. George speaks extremely nervously around Emily, and Emily’s voice is very hopeful, timid, and innocent. The actors, though, have voices very dramatized and different from modern/ everyday speech. For example, the men in the play speak as if they are more important/in charge of their wives/children, kind of how it used to be years ago.

The characters are positioned in a way that it is clear they are speaking to each other, but a lot of the times they are turned to the audience and sometimes even break the fourth wall. The stage creates a sort of hybrid between having a relationship with the audience and not breaking that fourth wall.

The acting, in my opinion, is pretty held and realistic. It isn’t very over the top or dramatized, which makes it much more realistic and credible. At points of the play, I got lost in the story, but not the whole time. It was hard to get lost since the play was based on a time so long ago, so I didn’t understand the way they were speaking or the references they were making all the time, like the choir scenes or the talk of agriculture school. The scenes that seemed for familiar though, like the wedding and the date between George and Emily, I got lost in people it was familiar to me. I thought of the actors did a good job of playing their parts, and I didn’t see any discrepancies.

There was little scenery in the play. There were not any backdrops in the play, which would have made the scenes hard to follow if it weren’t for the narrator. Props were present, but not any scenery.

The costumes were very outdated, which made sense because the play was based in the early 1900s. Everybody was dressed nicely, in suits or jackets or long dresses, the women wearing dresses with sinched waists and long wide skirts. The costumes are rarely changed through the play, except when Emily changes into her wedding dress and George into his tux. The costumes helped with the play because it gave the play that 1900s feel.

The lighting was extremely dark throughout the play, which I am guessing was to show how little natural lighting there was in the town, which was expressed in the beginning of the play. There were some spotlights on characters, but centrally the lighting was not very strong.

The conventions in this play were similar to the conventions in the other two plays. For one, there was a narrator explaining what was going on throughout the entire play. The lighting and costumes, like in Small House of Uncle Thomas, really helped deliver the theme of the play. In addition, the acting out of small actions like pouring water, drinking a soda, etc... helped get across what was going on in the play, like in Story Theatre.