Wilder

Lise uncovers textual variations among various scripts for Our Town, pentimenti apparently based on audience reaction to lines and scenes. Where does one go to learn how Wilder was in the professional theater scene? How did he see himself?He looms not large in the academic horizon, so far as I can see, but it's clear he was a serious theater artist, evolving and, in some ways, visionary. I might like his fiction better, but there are passages in the play, such as when Emily critizes George's character, which are telling, insightful, and related with wonderful economy. The sentimantality of the work has enough edge that it may not be mocked outright. The whole is a little ennervated, but there are passages of which American Literature can be proud. The posthumous scenes are disturbing, and I suppose that's good, but they do make it seem that the actual action of life is elsewhere, and the life depicted in the play was a sort of warm-up exercise, among company whom you would one day outgrow. One might think it wanted to be a musical.