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According to Mr. Springstein
According to Mr. Springstein
"This is Your Hometown"
By Eric Viets
The typical role of an omniscient character in a play or piece of literature is the role of a narrator. This narrator exists only to carry a story along and lead it to its inevitable conclusion. In the case of the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, the role of the Stage Manager is not simple narration, but in fact, his role is to transform the small town of Grover's Corner's into the reader's own town. He does not simply bring filler material and background information to the characters, but covey's a feeling of intimacy between the audience and the characters on stage. Without the character of the Stage Manager, the play would simply show the day to day events of the New England town, however, with the Stage Manager's assistance, the characters stop representing the inhabitants of Grover's Corners and become a person who the audience has known their entire life. By allowing the audience to transform the characters of Our Town into people from the audience's everyday life, Wilder is able to effectively get across the importance of living life for the moment and treasuring the time people have on this planet.
When the Stage Manager first walks on stage at the beginning of the first act, it seems almost as if he is not part of the play, that he is literally the plays stage manager, and not an actor. However, after he has given his opening speech on the performance, he begins to draw the audience into Grover's Corners. The lack of scenery works as a means for people to picture what their own town looks like. By giving only a vague description, the audience member is left to fill in the blanks for themselves. For this reason, the Stage Manager makes a concise effort not to describe anything about the surroundings in any large detail. Once the audience member has created this town in their head, it is only reasonable that this town must be populated by people, and so, the Stage Manager begins to introduce characters.
As the Stage Manager reveals the various inhabitants of the town, he also gives key information on the lives of the people in the town, but in no way closes off the audiences perceptions of what the people are like. When talking about the local paper boy (Joe Crowell Jr.) he proceeds to tell the audience the events that lead up to Joe's death. "Joe was awful bright-graduated from high school here… Goin' to be a great engineer, Joe was. But the war broke out and he died in France." (9) Many people may wonder why the Stage Manager would give such apparently unnecessary information to the story. The truth of the matter is, it is pieces of information like this which are the Stage Manager's purpose. While it is true that he moves the story along from point A to point B, he is also responsible for creating personalities in the town which the audience can feel as if they know. By revealing the death of Joe, the Stage Manager has brought us closer to Joe and given us an understanding on how true to life Grover's Corners is. Unlike in a fabricated world, death is an inevitable part of life in Grover's Corners, just as it is in the real world. The characters are not simple fictional creations, but in fact, they are the people the audience sees everyday in their own town. Once again, the Stage Manager is working as a means to try and recreate each audience members town on stage. By bringing the actuality of death into context, the Stage Manager has broken down a wall that would separate the audience from Grover's Corner. This added dimension of realism allows the audience member to see the reality that Grover's Corners is attempting to recreate in order to reinforce how true to life Wilder's idea of the importance of embracing life truly is.
If the Stage Manager is trying to recreate the audience's town, why would he offer certain limitations to the construct of the town? It is by adding certain restrictions that the Stage Manager actually adds yet another level of realism to the play. If the Stage Manager let the minds of the audience imagine their own town too much, certain aspects of the characters would seem out of place. Through his general descriptions and certain boundaries he sets the Stage Manager is able to create a Grover's Corners that is not only fictional, but real as well. Though there are certain fictional aspects to the town, such as the boundaries, certain street names, and buildings, the audience member fills in the blanks with real places from their own lives, forming yet another unique bond between the play and the audience. Since it would be impossible to recreate every person's hometown while still having the plays characters present, Wilder puts in these restrictions so that, though everything will not be applicable to every audience member, each one will be able to construct what is not said into their own world while being able to still have the plays characters present. The restrictions placed work mainly as a means of grounding certain aspects into the real world.
However the Stage Manager seems almost out of place in the confines of the play itself. Unlike the people living within the town, he has a greater understanding of what is the meaning of life and death. In this way, the Stage Manager functions as a voice for the views of the author, Thornton Wilder. At several key points within the play, the Stage Manager freezes time and gives an aside to the audience which reveals how he feels on the current situation, one example of this may be the wedding scene at the point when George and Emily kiss.
"Do I believe in it? I don't know. ____ marries ____ millions of them. The cottage, the go-cart, the Sunday afternoon drives in the Ford, the first rheumatism, the grandchildren, the second rheumatism, the deathbed, the reading of the will,- Once in a thousand times it's interesting." (82)
In this excerpt, the Stage Manager steps out of his impartial role of telling the audience about the everyday of the people in the town, and makes a general statement on the lives of people as a whole instead. Through the Stage Manager, Wilder is able to express his own feelings on what life means and how quickly it goes by. The statement in no way effects what happens to the people in the play, it is said so that Wilder can give his feelings on the life of all people, not just those in the play. By being able to step out of character and state these feelings, the Stage Manager works as a enforcer of the plays theme of embracing life. Having shown a realistic portrayal of life thus far in the play, the Stage Manager's aside works as a way of giving the reason behind everything. He has shown people glimpses of the characters in the plays lives, and glimpses into each audience members life as well. Through the aside, the Stage Manager shows why he has shown these things and tries to restate the reason behind showing these events, to show how interesting life is, and how people must realize this before it is too late.
One of the more crucial asides during the play happens during the third act, during which the Stage Manager gives several bits of advice to Emily on life and death, but in reality, is explaining the importance of life to the audience. In the afterlife, the Stage Manager functions as not only a guide in the physical sense, in which he decides what Emily can and can not do (105-106), but also a spiritual guide to the audience when he answers Emily's question "Do any human beings realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?" (108) with a firmly stated "No"(108). It is questions like these that truly bring the Stage Managers role into perspective. As a regular member of the cast, he would be forced to simply play his part, like that of Simon Stimson or Mrs. Gibbs, to end the play coming to final realization. However, as a being outside of the play, he is able to teach not just the characters in the play, but the audience as well. He is able to make sense of all the actions that have transpired on stage. As such, the Stage Manager stops operating as a narrator, and evolves into the role of an analyst or commentator. Having led us through the events of the story and shown the audience the everyday lives of the characters, he is now able to tell the audience "why" they have been shown this.
Through the actions of the first two acts, the everyday lives of the inhabitants of Grover's Corners was shown, and it is only in act three that the Stage Manager shows us why. After having watched the Stage Manager's portrayal of how life flies by, he finally comments on how people never truly realize the importance of life while they live it, it is only in hindsight that people are able to see it beauty. This, in essence, is what the role of the Stage Manager has been leading up to, the final philosophical answers (according to Wilder) of how people must realize the joy of day to day life and not get bogged down by the negative aspects or not pay close enough attention to those around us. When Emily says to her mother "Mama, just for a moment were happy. Let's look at each other." (107) By forcing Emily to relive this moment of her life and making her realize how she never truly realized how wonderful life was, the Stage Manager is expressing how that people never truly realize the happiness that is in front of them. Though the Stage Manager does not say many lines which state the importance of living life to its fullest, the idea that he is always controls the actions shows that this is the message he wishes to portray to the audience. In fact, Simon Stimson's final line sums up the Stage Manager's point quite adequately in saying "That's what it was to be alive. To Move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down tramping on the feelings of those… of those about you." (109) During life, people never truly notice each other, and it is only through the power of the Stage Manager, that the audience is able to see how true this is.
In writing a play with an omnipotent narrator like character, many people might suggest that Thornton Wilder was simply looking for an easy way to move the action of his play along, but in reality, the narrator part of the Stage Manager is only a façade. Though he does help the story progress, the Stage Manager exists as the conscience of Wilder. While partly telling a story, the Stage Manager also manages to give asides with the personal feelings of Wilders, as well as show how people miss what happens during life not through a simple story, but through the characters he places on stage. As well, by allowing people to envision Grover's Corner's as their own town, the Stage Manager expresses the universal importance of his idea, and how that all people, in all towns, need to stop and "look at each other" for just a moment so that they can too realize, if only for a second that "Just for a moment were happy." (107)
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