Our Town by Thornton Wilder (1946)

Adapted for broadcasting by Cynthia Pughe
[Starring] Martha Scott with William Eythe and Stanley Maxted
Thornton Wilder is one of those contemporary playwrights who are trying to lead modem drama away from the realistic problem play and the naturalistic tragedy to a more imaginative interpretation of life; the realistic problem play being represented, in England at any rate, by those conflicts of loyalties fought out by Granville-Barker, John Galsworthy, and their successors, and the naturalistic tragedy favoured by the Lancashire and Yorkshire schools, in which the curtain almost invariably rose on a squalid kitchen, with father out of work, mother on the streets, and the eldest son in prison. Wilder's Our Town belongs to neither of these categories. It is indeed a foreshadowing of The Skin of Our Teeth - although its impressionism may be not so profound.
Every rule of the realistic theatre is deliberately and cheerfully broken. It opens with the Stage Manager coming forward and taking the audience into his confidence: 'Well now, listeners, the name of our town is Grover's Corner, New Hampshire. It's just a little place - the population is 2,640. I'll try and give you a rough idea of the lay-out, so as you can get a kinda mental picture. Right here, where I'm standing, is Main Street, with the Post Office, the Town Hall, and a row of stores with hitchin' posts and horse blocks in front of them. We don't have automobiles yet, for this is May 7, 1901, just before dawn.'
And after that we have little cameos of the people in Our Town whose population of 2,640 has during this night, owing to the public spirit of Mrs. Goruslawski, increased to 2,642. We meet Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs and their two children, Mr. and Mrs. Webb and their two children, the newspaper boy, the milkman, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. It needn't be Grover's Corner at all. It is, in fact, everyone's corner; every corner of the earth where life's little comedies and tragedies go on, unchronicled except by observant people like Thornton Wilder.
(Stephen Williams)
First broadcast 28 September 1946.

Contributors
Writer:
Thornton Wilder
Broadcasting By:
Cynthia Pughe
Produced By:
Val Gielgud
Unknown:
Stephen Williams
Stage Manager:
Stanley Maxted
Dr Gibbs:
Tommy Duggan
Jo Crowell:
Sydney Keith
Honie Newcome:
Harry Ross
Mrs Gibbs:
Margaret Boyd
Mrs Webb:
Lorna Davis
George Gibbs:
William Eythe
Rebecca Gibbs:
Tucker McGuire
Wally Webb:
Alan Pearce
Emily Webb:
Martha Scott
Professor Willard:
Frank Cram
Mr Webb:
Hal Thompson
Mrs Soames:
Rita Vale
Constable Warren:
Larry Burns
Simon Stimson:
Stephen Jack
Joe Stoddard:
Eddy Reed
Sam Craig:
J. Adrian Byrne
Artistic woman:
Janet Morrison
The:
Singers were a section of the BBC Variety Chorus
Organist:
Maurice Vinden

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