Three Plays by Thornton Wilder

by Thornton Wilder

Paperback, 1961

Call number

822 WILD

Collection

Drama/Essays/Humor

Publication

Bantam Books (1961), 225 pages

Description

From celebrated Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Thornton Wilder, three of the greatest plays in American literature together in one volume. This omnibus edition brings together Wilder's three best-known plays: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, and The Matchmaker. In includes a preface by the author, as well as a foreword by playwright John Guare. Our Town, Wilder's timeless Pulitzer Prize-winning look at love, death, and destiny, opened on Broadway in 1938 and continues to be celebrated and performed around the world. The Skin of our Teeth, Wilder's 1942 romp about human follies and human endurance starring the Antrobus family of Excelsior, New Jersey, earned Wilder his third Pulitzer Prize. The Matchmaker, Wilder's brilliant 1954 farce about money and love starring that irrepressible busybody Dolly Gallagher Levi. This play inspired the Broadway musical Hello, Dolly!… (more)

Subjects

American drama 20th century

User reviews

LibraryThing member MerryMary

I teach "Our Town" every year. It is my favorite play, but I enjoy the other 2 almost as much. I was on the prop crew when my college drama department did "Skin of Our Teeth" many years ago.

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LibraryThing member Devil_llama

A classic playwright? Or a postmodern playwright before postmodernism was the buzz? Wilder has a touch for the absurd, creating characters who are charming while being surly, ridiculous but recognizable, and so outlandish you just know they have to be for real. The settings are a mixture of the

realist period that shaped his youth, with set descriptions that would do Arthur Miller proud, but they aren't actually realistic - there's always something a bit off about them. Ladders for second floors, walls that suddenly jump for no reason, just little touches of craziness and absurdism that help take the edge off plays that could be gritty and realistic if he hadn't made them so outlandish. A true masterpiece of theatre.

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LibraryThing member ffortsa

As I said above, we saw the Lincoln Center production of this a couple of weeks ago, and were surprised by the darkness of the last act. But it's right there in the script, allowing the director to emphasize or not emphasize it. The edition I read has a Forward by Paula Vogel, which emphasizes the

way Wilder departs from the conventions of theater in his day, and how that freedom of form affected the writers after him. And there's an afterword by Tappan Wilder, nephew of the writer, outlining the process and difficulties encountered in the creation and staging of the play, along with some photographs from the older productions.

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Fewer

Pages

225

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