The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Chronicles #12 ｜ Our Town

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome to this episode of Chronicles, where today we're going to be discussing

00:00:16.320 Our Town by Thornton Wilder. And to those of you who are unfamiliar with this particular play,

00:00:23.600 my hook is simple for you, which is to say that this is my favourite play of all time.

00:00:31.240 That shouldn't be taken as to mean I also think it's the best play ever written, but it is my

00:00:38.660 favourite, and I'm looking forward to exploring many of the reasons for that as we go through.

00:00:45.820 But let's begin by talking a little bit about Wilder. So Wilder was a remarkably intelligent

00:00:52.060 man. He was born in 1897 in Madison, Wisconsin, and he was actually a surviving twin. His other

00:01:02.260 twin was a stillborn, and he had four other siblings. They travelled a lot. He actually

00:01:08.040 attended an international school in Yantai in China. And then from there, he went on to get

00:01:15.200 his degree at Yale, studying archaeology and Italian. He then went on to go to a postgraduate

00:01:23.600 in Rome, where he went on to do further archaeology. And then he went on to do a master's at Princeton.

00:01:31.520 So an incredible academic pedigree behind him. What's more, as well as English, obviously, he also spoke

00:01:39.120 French, German and Spanish. And one of the other interesting things to note about him was that he

00:01:45.600 was actually a lieutenant colonel. And what's more, of course, a very, very famous writer in his own

00:01:52.320 right. And Our Town is definitely, I would say, his most famous play. So shall we begin talking about it?

00:02:00.080 Every act, every scene, every moment of the play takes place in the fictional town of Grover's Corners,

00:02:13.120 New Hampshire. The play is introduced by the stage manager. It is his play, and the manager is all

00:02:20.560 knowing. He recounts the past, he speaks of the present, and he alludes to the future. Of the town's

00:02:27.440 history, the manager says, the earliest tombstones in the cemetery up there on the mountain, say,

00:02:33.360 1670 to 1680. They're Grover's and Cartwright's and Gibbs's and Hersey's. Same names as are around

00:02:41.360 here now. The first act begins in 1901, and we are informed that this act will simply cover the goings

00:02:48.880 on of a single day. It is morning, and we see this small town aglow with the innocent tranquility of

00:02:56.400 everyday life. The paper boy chipily does his rounds, and the stage manager gives us a summary

00:03:02.640 of his life. Want to tell you something about that boy, Joe Crowell. Joe was awful bright. Graduated from

00:03:09.280 high school here, head of his class. So he got a scholarship to Massachusetts Tech. Graduated,

00:03:15.600 head of his class there too. It was all wrote up in the Boston paper at the time. Going to be a great

00:03:21.840 engineer, Joe was. But the war broke out, and he died in France. All that education for nothing.

00:03:29.680 Mr. Newsome delivers the milk with his horse, Bessie, and the neighbouring Webb and Gibbs's families send

00:03:36.240 their children to school. Amongst the colourful cast of characters, it is the lives of the eldest

00:03:42.880 children that lies at the heart of this story. George Gibbs and Emily Webb. After the children have

00:03:50.080 left for school, the neighbourly mothers gossip with one another in the garden, and Mrs. Gibbs tells

00:03:55.600 of her lifelong dream to visit Paris. But her husband is a settled man, with responsibilities

00:04:02.960 as the town's most eminent doctor, and he only ever leaves the town biannually to visit the

00:04:08.240 battlefields of the Civil War, his greatest historical passion. The stage manager then moves the day

00:04:15.120 forward a few hours and introduces Professor Willard to the audience. The professor lectures on the age

00:04:21.760 of the land with evidence of Devonian basalt, the vestiges of Mesozoic shale, and the fossils found

00:04:29.040 about the land surrounding the town. He then comments on the population of the town as 3,149.

00:04:37.200 The next local to speak is Emily's father, Mr. Charles Webb, who is the editor and publisher

00:04:43.520 of the town's local newspaper. It meticulously explains the town's political demography. 86%

00:04:51.040 Republican, 85% Protestant. An all-round very ordinary town, if you ask me. A little better 1.00

00:04:58.080 behaved than most, but our young people here seem to like it well enough. 90% of them graduating from

00:05:04.320 high school settle down right here to live, even when they've been away to college. The afternoon

00:05:10.000 continues, and the children begin to return from school. Emily is giddy with triumph from her

00:05:16.000 speech on the Louisiana purchasing class, and George Gibbs compliments her on it. He clearly has a crush

00:05:22.480 on her, and asks if she could give him a few hints on the homework from their bedroom windows sometime.

00:05:29.440 It's clear that Emily feels similarly, and asks her mother if she's pretty enough to get a boy's

00:05:35.360 attention. To which Mrs. Webb dubiously assures her daughter that she's pretty enough for all 1.00

00:05:42.000 normal purposes. The stage manager then remarks on the new bank that is being built in the town.

00:05:47.440 They're going to have a cornerstone put in, and a few special texts encased in a protective glue.

00:05:53.760 Then, they can be examined in thousands of years, if they're ever unearthed. The Bible, naturally. 0.74

00:06:00.480 As well as some works of Shakespeare, a copy of Mr. Webb's local sentinel newspaper, and a copy of the

00:06:07.360 play that the audience is watching. You know, Babylon once had two million people in it, and all we know

00:06:14.400 about them is the names of the kings, and some copies of wheat contracts, and contracts for the sale of

00:06:20.720 slaves. Yet every night, all those families sat down to supper. And the father came home from his work,

00:06:27.760 and the smoke went up the chimney. Same as here. And even in Greece and Rome, all we know about the

00:06:34.640 real life of the people is what we can piece together out of the joking poems and the comedies

00:06:40.560 they wrote for the theatre back then. So, I'm going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone,

00:06:47.680 and the people of a thousand years from now will know a few simple facts about us. More than the

00:06:53.680 Treaty of Versailles and the Lindbergh flight. See what I mean? So, people a thousand years from now

00:07:00.560 will know this is the way we were in the provinces north of New York at the beginning of the 20th

00:07:07.200 century. This is the way we were in our growing up, and in our marrying, and in our living, and in our dying.

00:07:15.120 Time trickles on. The townsfolk are at choir practice, and singing the Christian hymn,

00:07:21.440 Blessed be the ties that bind. As nightfall descends upon Grover's corners, the moonlight beams,

00:07:29.120 and George and Emily speak with youthful flickerings of romance. George wants to be a farmer, and he's

00:07:36.000 been told that one day he can inherit his uncle's farm. But George is young, and more amused with his

00:07:42.400 hobbies, such as baseball. His father sternly tells him to start being more responsible about the house,

00:07:49.280 and chop wood for his mother. After all, farm work is a great labor, and if George is serious

00:07:55.600 about the future, he needs to start developing his work ethic. The women return from choir practice, 0.99

00:08:02.000 the town settles down for the night, and Mrs. Gibbs is unsuccessful, and talking her husband into a 0.58

00:08:08.000 trip to Paris. Upstairs, George and his sister stare intently at the moon. Before it is time to go to

00:08:15.600 sleep, and as the day draws to an end, so does the first act. That's the end of the first act, friends.

00:08:22.400 You can go and smoke now, those that smoke. Act two begins three years on, and our manager sets the scene

00:08:29.760 once more. The first act was called Daily Life. This act is called Love and Married. There's another act

00:08:37.600 after this. I reckon you can guess what that's about. It's July, 1904. The flowers in Mrs. Gibbs's garden

00:08:46.240 weep in the rain. In the house, Mrs. Gibbs is weeping just as readily. It's a big day, and emotions are high.

00:08:54.000 Both George and Emily had to be married. Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs reflect on their own marriage,

00:08:59.920 with Mr. Gibbs chuckling as he admits to thinking he'd run out of conversation after three weeks.

00:09:05.840 George bursts down the stairs, and heads over to the Webb household. He startles Mrs. Webb, 0.61

00:09:11.360 bursting into a kitchen, overcome with excitement at spending the rest of his life with his childhood

00:09:17.280 sweetheart. The Webs were up all night preparing, sewing her wedding dress, packing her belongings.

00:09:23.440 Comedy and embarrassment ensues, as George is left at the table with his father-in-law to be.

00:09:29.760 And Mr. Webb pensively remarks, it's the women folk who've built up marriages, my boy. 0.99

00:09:35.440 For a while now, the women have had it all their own. The man looked pretty small at a wedding, George. 0.97

00:09:42.640 All those good women, standing shoulder to shoulder, making sure that the knot's tied in a 1.00

00:09:48.800 mighty public way. But he quickly assures George of his belief in the institution.

00:09:54.960 The stage manager returns, and turns the clock back, so that we are presented with the day that

00:10:00.720 George and Emily realize that they were truly meant for one another. They're both seniors at school.

00:10:06.640 Emily is still the intelligent, driven young talent that she was in the first act, and George is still the

00:10:12.720 baseball-playing jock with a sensitive soul. George offers to carry Emily's books home as they walk,

00:10:19.520 but she is haughty and aloof. 0.70

00:10:21.280 Well, up to a year ago, I used to like you a lot, and I used to watch you as you did everything,

00:10:28.000 because we'd been friends so long. And then you began spending all your time at baseball,

00:10:34.240 and you never stopped to speak to anybody anymore. Not even your own family you didn't. And, George,

00:10:40.080 it's a fact. You've grown awful conceited and stuck up, and all the girls say so. They may not

00:10:45.840 say it to your face, but that's what they say about you behind your back. And it hurts me to hear them

00:10:52.240 say it, but I've got to agree with them a little. I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings, but I can't be

00:10:58.560 sorry I said it. I'm... I... I'm glad you said it, Emily. I never thought that such a thing was happening

00:11:07.520 to me. I guess it's hard for a fella not to have folds creep into his character. I always expect a man

00:11:14.560 to be perfect, and I think he should be. I don't think it's possible to be perfect, Emily. Well,

00:11:21.760 my father is. And as far as I can see, your father is. There's no reason on earth why you shouldn't be

00:11:27.440 too. But Emily's talk is all brought forth by her fears. George is going away to state agriculture

00:11:34.720 school so he can devote himself to studying the technical expertise of farm work. And Emily is

00:11:40.880 deeply upset to lose him. She's emotional, and George asks her to join him for an ice cream soda.

00:11:47.440 Over their strawberry sodas, the two share a sweet moment, and George begins to piece together how

00:11:53.120 Emily feels about him. In the spur of the moment, he declares that he won't go to college. Some of them

00:12:00.160 say it's even a waste of time. You can get all those things anyway out of the pamphlets the government

00:12:05.360 sends out. And Uncle Luke's getting old. He's about ready for me to start taking over his farm

00:12:11.600 tomorrow if I could. And like you say, being gone all that time in other places and meeting other

00:12:19.840 people. Gosh, if anything like that can happen, I don't want to go away. I guess new people aren't

00:12:27.360 any better than old ones. Bet they almost never are. Emily, I feel that you're as good a friend as

00:12:34.400 I've got. I don't need to go and meet the people in other towns. Listen, Emily, I'm going to tell you

00:12:41.600 why I'm not going to go to agriculture school. I think that once you've found a person that you're

00:12:47.440 very fond of. I mean, a person who's fond of you, too, and likes you enough to be interested in your

00:12:54.240 character. Well, I feel that that's just as important as college is, and even more so. That's

00:13:01.920 what I think. The whole community is assembled, and both Emily and George have private doubts about

00:13:09.600 going through with it. But they're consoled by the respective parents, and the newlyweds depart the

00:13:15.440 stage to a scene of euphoric revelry. And on that remarkable high point of their lives, act two

00:13:23.120 draws to an end. Nine years have gone by, friends. Summer, 1913. Gradual changes in Grover's Corners.

00:13:31.680 Horses are getting rarer. Farmers coming into town in fords. Everybody locks their house doors now at

00:13:38.480 night. Ain't been any burglars in town yet, but everybody's heard of them. You'd be surprised,

00:13:44.880 though. On the whole, things don't change much around here. The act begins in the cemetery,

00:13:50.720 and we are told that several of the characters have now passed on. This here is a new part of the

00:13:56.960 cemetery. Here's your friend, Mrs. Gibbs, and let me see. Here's Mr. Stimson, and Mrs. Soames,

00:14:05.040 Owen, a lot of others, and Editor Webb's boy, Wallace, whose appendix burst while he was

00:14:12.080 on a Boy Scout trip to Crawford Notch. The deceased sit on chairs beyond the sight of the living,

00:14:18.800 and an empty chair is between them. A man called Sam Craig has come from Buffalo to attend the funeral

00:14:26.240 of his cousin, who is revealed to be none other than Emily Webb, who passed away due to complications

00:14:33.120 giving birth to her second child. Emily then comes on stage and sits with the souls who have passed on.

00:14:40.800 They speculate as the mourners gather for the funeral, with George, Mr. Gibbs, and Emily's parents in

00:14:47.200 attendance. But Emily's soul is certain. But Mother Gibbs, one could go back. One could go back there again,

00:14:55.600 into living. I feel it. I know it. Why, just then, for a moment, I was thinking about,

00:15:02.720 about the farm. And for a moment, I was there, and yes, of course you can. I can go back there and

00:15:11.360 live all those days over again. Why not? All I can say is, Emily, don't. But it's true, isn't it?

00:15:19.040 I can go back and live. Back there, again. Yes. Some have tried, but they soon come back here.

00:15:27.360 But I won't live over a sad day. I'll choose a happy day. I'll choose the day I first knew that

00:15:33.200 I loved George. Why should that be painful? You not only live it, but you watch yourself living it.

00:15:40.320 And as you watch it, you see the thing that they, down there, never know. You see the future. You know

00:15:47.200 what's going to happen afterwards, but Emily insists and chooses her 12th birthday, February 11th, 1899.

00:15:56.400 She walks the streets and sees the familiar faces of the paperboy, the milkman, and the policeman.

00:16:02.480 She stands in her family home, that haven of happiness that she'd awoken to for 18 years,

00:16:09.040 and sees the table at which she had eaten 20,000 meals, surrounded by the love of her family.

00:16:15.520 As she watches her birthday play out before her, the emotional strain becomes unbearable,

00:16:21.760 as she sees the joy and beauty of the single moment play out before her. Every word, every name,

00:16:28.800 every second, now so precious. I, I didn't realize. So all this was going on and we never noticed?

00:16:40.640 Take me back, up the hill, to my grave. But first, wait, one more look. Goodbye. Goodbye, world. Goodbye, Grover's Corners.

00:16:53.680 Mama and Papa. Goodbye to ticking clocks and Mama sunflowers and food and coffee and new iron dresses and 0.56

00:17:03.600 hot baths and sleeping and waking up. Oh, Earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

00:17:12.000 Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute? Emily returns to the

00:17:21.440 other souls and comes to terms with her fate. But for George Gibbs, he must persevere with life as he

00:17:29.440 returns to Emily's grave and collapses before it in misery. As the dead lament that the living do not

00:17:36.240 understand. The stage manager then draws a play to an end with these final lines. There are the stars

00:17:43.600 doing their old, old crisscross journeys in the sky. Scholars haven't settled the matter yet, but

00:17:50.240 they seem to think that there are no living beings up there. Just chalk or fire. Only this one is straining

00:17:58.160 away. Straining away all the time to make something of itself. The strain is so bad that every 16 hours,

00:18:06.240 everybody lies down and gets a rest. 11 o'clock in Grover's Corners. You should get a good rest too.

00:18:15.920 Good night. Structurally, Our Town is a remarkably well-crafted play. By having all the three acts take

00:18:25.840 place over various stages of life, going first through just aspects of daily life and then deeper questions

00:18:35.040 such as love and marriage and then of course finally death. The play explores a great scope of what it

00:18:44.080 means to live and asks questions about what makes a fulfilling life. You have lots of characters within

00:18:52.720 this play. Many of them are trying to figure out their way through life and many of them are very content

00:18:59.920 with the hand that they've been dealt. One thing to say about the staging as well is that Our Town is

00:19:06.960 a minimalist play. You won't watch a production of Our Town and see grand elaborate sets and a whole

00:19:16.240 profusion of props. On the contrary, Our Town, traditionally speaking, is all played by mime. So you wouldn't

00:19:25.040 actually have a knife and fork for a scene where the people were eating their dinner. You would simply

00:19:32.000 mime the action. So basically by removing everything material from the action, the minimalism allows you

00:19:39.600 to focus even more entirely on just the human action, the human experience of living. And it draws you in

00:19:47.760 more to the conversation and the relationships between the different characters because you have

00:19:55.440 nothing else to focus on. So let's talk about the stage manager because he might seem to begin with

00:20:02.720 a very unorthodox, very strange character to include in a play like this. But actually the stage manager

00:20:09.200 as a creation is a stroke of genius. He functions in many ways a lot like an ancient Greek chorus

00:20:16.080 in that he does not move events within the story, although he does have the ability to meddle with

00:20:24.240 time and obviously move some events forward, allow events to be played back. But, and characters do

00:20:30.800 interact with him, but really you are just viewing life in the town through his observations of it and

00:20:39.840 occasionally he will speak and say something incredibly profound and then the action will pick up

00:20:45.920 with the characters again. Also because of the meta theatrical style in which you are constantly

00:20:52.960 reminded whilst you're sat there that this is a play and are even told in many cases or is certainly

00:21:00.160 alluded to what is going to happen towards the end of the story. That takes out a lot of the tension

00:21:06.080 and guesswork within the story for what is going to happen next because it wants you to, so say for

00:21:13.760 example with the example of the paper boy Joe Crowell, by telling you beforehand that it is going to be his

00:21:22.800 fate to perish on the battlefield of World War One, it means that going forward every time you see the

00:21:30.160 character in the play there is this dark twisted sense of doom about the character who is really for all intents and

00:21:38.560 purposes just your typical good natured lad doing the paper rounds with his little flat cap and his

00:21:47.120 first job. By knowing what is going to happen to him later it makes the moments that you see of him have

00:21:54.560 more weight because you know how limited his time is and you know that he's going to be dead in about 15

00:22:02.640 years and so by taking on the stage managers omnipotent you're able to experience more broadly the

00:22:11.360 triumphs and tragedies of all of the characters involved in the play. We'll approach this by just

00:22:18.720 going through the acts one at a time and I'll talk about them as we go. So let's begin mostly in depth

00:22:26.880 with act one. If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the Lotus Eaters head to our website

00:22:32.240 where you can find more.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - August 30, 2025

PREVIEW： Chronicles #12 ｜ Our Town

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