Question

In at least 150 words, explain why Our Town is a modernist play. Discuss specific theatrical devices and themes that link the text to American Modernism.

Answer 1

Our Town by Thornton Wilder is a modernist play because it explores the transience of human life, in a sense that the characters in the play highlight the significance of the little things that they do in their daily lives. The play is also narrated through the view of a stage manager which openly tells the audience about how the stage is designed and what each prop is meant for. The stage manager is a character both inside and outside the play which blurs the wall between the reality that what the audience is about to see is fictional, and the fiction that the play is supposedly real in the character's point of view. This characteristic of the play destabilizes the line between fact and fiction and is considered a modernist play based on that setting itself, among all other themes of the play.