“This is a play with Shakespearean power and authority,” says Matheson. “Emily is a Shakespearean young woman.”
According to Matheson, the idea that the play is escapism is wrong. It is instead a “visionary return” that has political and spiritual dimensions.
“Wilder seems to have been keenly aware of how fragile social bonds can become,” says Matheson. Wilder wrote the play while the country was in the middle of the Great Depression.
With the exception of the child Rebecca Gibbs’ declarations, the mention of Banker Cartwright’s white house on the hill and as the first buyer of a car, money is not really mentioned.
“Money, which obsesses us, is clearly not the subject of the play,” says Matheson. However, relative material equality does create social coherence in the play.
The play’s theme of unity is still relevant today.
As Wilder places emphasis on the word “United” in “United States,” America is now facing the divisiveness that has come with reactions to the election of its first African-American President.
“Our Town” provides a pastoral alternative to urban America in 1938. Yet, Grover’s Corners is not a utopia. One of the characters, Simon Stimson, commits suicide.
“It’s the extraordinary representation of the dead,” says Matheson, “that becomes so overwhelmingly powerful.”
The hymn “Blessed Be the Tie that Binds” twists through the play “like a vine” and is about “eternal friendship with other people.” The play focuses on the unremarkable events of every day to make its point about people.
“[‘Our Town’] has the power to transform the way we live individually and the way we live together,” says Matheson. “Act 3 is extraordinary.”
