I read Our Town and two other Thornton Wilder plays last year (published together in one volume, found in the library, borrowed because of Tom Lake). I think I might enjoy watching Our Town more than reading it. I found the introduction quite interesting. The review I finally got round to posting on Librarything (sorry for length):
Review
Our Town and other Plays, Thornton Wilder
This Penguin Modern Classics volume contains three plays by Thornton Wilder: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth and the Matchmaker, together with a Preface by the author and a more recent Introduction from 2017 by John Lahr. The same three plays have been collected in other editions, for example, as Three Plays by Thornton Wilder. but with a different introduction. A production of Our Town was part of the storyline of the novel Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, and as I knew nothing about Thornton Wilder's work previously, this was what prompted me to borrow this when I found it in the library.
Our Town, first published and staged in 1938, is a 3 Act Play a story about two families in a small American town over 13 years in the early 20th century, narrated by the Stage Manager who also literally sets up the stage, reminding audience and reader that this is a play.
By the Skin of our Teeth, from 1942, after the US entered into World War II also focuses on a family, but also is a story of how humans survive thousands of years of wars and disasters, often caused by very human mistakes.
The Matchmaker (1954) is a rewritten version of an earlier Wilder play, The Merchant of Yonkers, a social comedy set in the 1880s, also based on earlier plays from Vienna and London which are credited at the beginning.
Thornton Wilder's Preface and John Lahr's introduction offer a short biography of Thornton Wilder and the story of how he grew up interested in theatre from an early age, though sadly his acting at school was restricted by his father's demands that he should not be allowed to dress up in women's clothes or play female roles. This introductory material also looks at the playwright's intentions in his work, his optimism and wish to convey a sense of wonder. Some readers may want to read the plays first before coming back to the introductory material, but I think the introduction and preface are really useful in understanding the context in which they were written and the author's intentions. This would also be valuable to anyone studying the plays for a literature or drama course.
It is a few years since I read any plays and Thornton Wilder is rather different from Arthur Miller whose best known works I am more familiar with. This was an intriguing read but I was never entirely drawn into the story, and the works are very much of the time they were written, with rather limited roles and horizons for female characters, marriage and motherhood at best. In this respect, The Matchmaker at least offers a bit more fun in the storyline.