Thornton Wilder wrote plays and novels about community, time, mortality and the ordinary routines through which people understand their lives. Our Town is set in the fictional New Hampshire town of Grover's Corners and follows George Gibbs and Emily Webb through childhood, marriage and death, using a Stage Manager who addresses the audience directly and a deliberately minimal set. The play turns everyday actions into a reflection on how little attention people give to life while they are living it. The Bridge of San Luis Rey, a novel, begins when a bridge collapses in Peru and a friar investigates the lives of the five people who died, asking whether their deaths reveal any pattern or purpose. Wilder's work is formally simple on the surface but often philosophical in structure. Our Town is the essential dramatic starting point; The Bridge of San Luis Rey is the clearest route into his fiction. Read more Less
No products in the cart.