Our Town Essay & Criticism

Our Town Critical Overview

Our Town's off-Broadway warm-up shows met with cool reception in 1938, but New York critics, spearheaded by Brooks Atkinson, built up a favorable response that was matched by public enthusiasm and a run of 336 performances. It is, without question, the most produced play in American theater. Scarcely a day has passed since its opening in 1938 that Our Town has not been performed somewhere in this country—in productions from professional revivals to community theaters to colleges and high schools. Why? There is no scenery; the actors dress in everyday clothing for the early 1900s; there is no sex or violence; there's not even any harsh language. Yet there is something in this play that draws people to it year after year.

John Mason Brown remarked in his Dramatis Personae: A Retrospective Show that "Mr. Wild-er's play involves more than a New England township. It burrows into the essence...
(read more)