Selected
class work.

Our Town is a play written by Thornton Wilder. This play portrays the daily life, marriage, and death of the residents of Grover's Corners, a small town in New Hampshire. I watched a recorded stage performance of Our Town on BiliBili.

In fact, this play does not heavily rely on dramatic plot or elaborate sets. Instead, it adopts narration by an old man, direct address, and a seemingly monotonous tone. However, the dark set attracted my attention. These choices are consistent with the theory of Epic Theatre, proposed by Bertolt Brecht, which we have learned. The theory argues that drama should encourage active thinking through performances, rather than blind emotional engagement. Although Our Town is not technically a work of “Epic Theatre,” many of its techniques strongly reflect Brecht's principles.

The core of Epic Theatre is the “alienation effect,” which employs various techniques to break the boundary between reality and illusion constructed by the stage or characters. This approach prompts the audience to think critically about social issues. In Our Town, this concept is manifested through the Stage Manager. Notably, the Stage Manager does not appear to be performing on stage but rather seems to be playing a role backstage; however, in Our Town, the Stage Manager serves as a unique narrative device. From the beginning of the act, the Stage Manager breaks the fourth wall, speaking directly to the audience about specific names, playwrights, dates, and times, and even introducing the layout of Grover's Corners. He does not pretend the audience is nonexistent but acknowledges them, then describes the characters' backgrounds, futures, and so on. For example, he states that Miss Gibbs married a salesman and ultimately died of pneumonia. Through his presentation, he constantly reminds the audience of the dramatic framework when they are indulging in the plot, encouraging them to reflect on what the characters intend to show or reveal.

The play exposes stage machinery to create the “Alienation Effect” (the core of Epic Theatre). As shown on stage, most props are invisible, such as herbicide, tableware, newspapers, and meals. A small number of props are physically present, like rocking chairs and tables. While watching the performance, I noticed that the characters mimic ordinary daily activities, such as eating breakfast or doing homework on stage. However, the bare stage prevents the audience from losing themselves in visual details and directs their attention to the meaning of behaviors, such as the repetitiveness and passage of time in everyday life.

The technique I mentioned regarding the alienation effect alerts the audience: this is a dramatic performance, and they should focus on what the author aims to reflect. In the plot, the town encourages people to develop at a uniform pace, rather than through overwhelming emotions. For instance, when George becomes obsessed with baseball and neglects others, Emily argues that he is self-important. This plot complication reveals how personal flaws are criticized by the system (the town). Ironically, later when he succeeds, his past self-importance is forgotten.

Life in Grover's Corners is cyclical and monotonous. Act I: Daily Life, Act II: Love and Marriage, and Act III: Death and Eternity occur spontaneously among town members, even across generations, without change. As the Stage Manager alerts us, they identify themselves as “American, United States of America,” yet most town members have never left the town and scarcely consider other lifestyles. Exemplified by George, when he gives up the opportunity to attend agricultural college, it seems a personal choice but actually reinforces the town's culture rather than challenging it.

Tradition also plays a stabilizing role in the community. One impressive example in the play is that George believes separating the bride and groom is a superstition, yet Mr. Webb defends it as having “a lot of common sense.” This demonstrates how the town maintains order and eliminates uncertainty.

In conclusion, Our Town is not strictly an Epic Theatre work simply because the essence of Epic Theatre is political critique. In Our Town, there is no political critique or class oppression, so it is not a political work of Epic Theatre. However, it clearly adopts Brecht's principles, even the core one, using the alienation effect to address the audience, prevent emotional indulgence, and encourage critical thinking and reflection. Therefore, we can consider Our Town as a non-Brechtian play that combines Epic Theatre techniques to reflect daily life, tradition, and human awareness.

Favourite passage

In Our Town, the moment that affected me most, and the one I liked best, was in Act II, when Emily suddenly hesitates before her wedding and wants to turn back.

It shows the enormous pressure exerted by the town's traditions. Emily keeps telling her father about her fear just as the wedding is about to begin. It is one of the few moments of emotional tension in the play. She realizes that marriage means leaving her parents, saying goodbye to childhood, and permanently leaving the familiar life she has known. She says there are many places she wants to see and things she wants to experience, and suddenly understands that she is being fixed onto an irreversible track. That fear and uncertainty make her want to say no.

What makes this sudden awareness powerful is how out of place it feels, as if an established route has been interrupted. A woman has the right to refuse a relationship, but backing out when everyone has arrived also affects the families and all the people involved. That tension makes Emily's hesitation both inconvenient and sharply real.

I was even more struck by the reaction around her. Nobody chooses to argue with her. Her father and the people of the town comfort her gently, repeating that everything will be all right. Her resistance is treated as a passing emotion rather than a choice that could change the future.

No one seriously considers the possibility that she will not marry, because in the town's value system life is supposed to follow its three acts: daily life, marriage, death, and eternity. A middle-aged woman at the wedding wipes away tears and tells the camera that it is “lovely,” even though she does not know why. Everyone agrees that it is beautiful.

This scene made me understand that the town's stability is not maintained through force. It is maintained through gentle persuasion and collective, silent agreement. Even when doubt appears, it is absorbed back into the cycle. The wedding is not a decision that can truly change a life; it is a step that must be completed. This depiction of repeated life also reminded me of Waiting for Godot. Both plays show people trapped in a cycle, although one is an absurd comedy whose language loses its logic. That connection gave me a deeper understanding of tradition's power in Our Town.