Our Town

Our Town takes place in the fictional town of Grover’s Corner, New Hampshire, and begins on May 7, 1901, with “no curtain [and] [n]o scenery” (3) as the Stage Manager, with his pipe and hat, enters the stage and dawn breaks. He places a few basic props around the stage to set the scenes of Main Street and the Gibbs and Webb houses. Since this is a metatheatrical play, the Stage Manager acts as the narrator and addresses the audience directly as he introduces the play’s setting, speaking about the events as if they occurred in the past. He even pokes fun at them and their odd expectations of what a play should be: “There’s some scenery for those who think they have to have scenery” (5). He describes the town with its six denominational churches, Main Street, Town Hall, Polish Town, Post Office, jail, grocery store and drug store, grade and high schools, the town doctor Doc Gibbs’s house, his wife Mrs Gibbs’s garden, and Mrs Webb’s garden. He describes it as a “nice town” inhabited by the same four families (the Grovers, Cartwrights, Gibbses, and Herseys) since the late 1600s when it was established. Grover’s Corners is a quiet town where nothing and nobody remarkable seems to occur.

Doc Gibbs, who, the Stage Manager explains, died in 1930 and has the new hospital named after him, enters as he walks down Main Street and greets Joe Crowell Jr., the 11-year-old paperboy. Mrs Gibbs, who died of pneumonia in the late 1910s, simultaneously enters on her way downstairs to breakfast. Joe asks Doc Gibbs if he would like his morning paper and tells Doc Gibbs how his teacher, Miss Foster, is getting married to a man from Concord. Joe believes that “if a person starts out to be a teacher, she ought to stay one” (8). The Stage Manager cuts in to explain that Joe was an extremely bright boy who went on to university to become an engineer but died in the First World War, and his education was wasted.

Howie Newsome, the milkman, enters the stage (Main Street) next and similarly greets Doc Gibbs. Doc Gibbs explains that he is on his way back from Polish Town, where he helped deliver twins. Mrs Gibbs says greets Howie Newsome as he makes his rounds with his horse Bessie, pointing out that he is late on his deliveries. She calls up to her children George and Rebecca that it is time to wake up, and Howie exits. Doc Gibbs enters his house, appearing mildly stressed, and Mrs Gibbs asks if he is alright. Doc Gibbs is exhausted from being overworked, and his wife is worried about his health. She urges him to take some time to rest. She also complains about George, noting that “he just whines” (13) and is no help around the house. She asks Doc Gibbs to speak to George about his attitude, and Doc Gibbs gets right to it before going upstairs for a nap. Alongside this scene, Mrs Webbs is calling her children Wally and Emily to wake up as well. The parallels of the two families are clear: two children, each wife takes care of a garden, and both start their day the same way.

Offstage, Rebecca tells her mom that the dress she chose for her makes her look like a “sick turkey” (14). George is bugging her, and their mother threatens to slap them if they continue being difficult. A factory whistle can be heard, and the Gibbs children rush onto the stage. The Stage Manager explains that it is the whistle of the blanket factory in their own. George complains about his low allowance of 25 cents a week, and Rebecca explains that he will have more if he saves up. Mrs Gibbs tells her it is good to spend money occasionally, and Rebecca replies, “Do you know what I love most in the world. Do you? Money” (16). The school bell sounds, and both the Gibbs and Webb children dash off to school in a panic.

Finally, Mrs Gibbs’s and Mrs Webb’s parallel lives meet, and the two converse with one another out their gardens. They address each other as Myrtle (Webb) and Julia (Gibbs) because they are close friends. Mrs Gibbs relates a story about a secondhand furniture salesman from Boston who offered to buy her grandmother’s old chair for $350. She wants to use the money to take her and her husband on a trip to Paris, but Doc Gibbs is reluctant because it “might make him discontented with Grover’s Corners to go traipsin’ about Europe” (20). The Stage Manager thanks the ladies for their performance and returns to his descriptions of the town. He asks Professor Willard to step in and add some details about the town’s history, noting his time on the stage is limited. Professor Willard enters and explains that the town lies on a fossil bed. Before he can start rambling, the Stage Manager cuts him off and asks him for the town’s population: 2,640 people. The Stage Manager whispers in his ear, and then the Professor corrects himself: “The population at the moment is 2,642. The Postal District brings in 507 more, making a total of 3,149” (23). Professor Willard exits.

Mr Webb, the local newspaper publisher, is up next with the political report after his wife enters, explains that he will just be a moment, and exits. She yells to her husband that “everybody’s waitin’” (23), referring to the Stage Manager and audience. Mr Webb enters. He describes the town as lower middle class, where men are required to vote starting at age 21 and women “vote indirect” (24). The town is comprised of a “sprinkling” of professionals and a few illiterate laborers. Residents are predominantly Protestant, with a small percentage of Catholics and those who are religiously “indifferent.” Politically, the town is mainly Republican, with some Democrats, Socialists, and politically indifferent people as well. The Stage Manager asks for Mr Webb’s comments, and he replies that the town is ordinary and quiet.

The Stage Manager asks if anyone has any questions for Mr Webb, and several staged audience members pose a few. They want to know about drinking in the town, to which Mr Webb replies, “I’d say likker ain’t a regular thing in the home here, except in the medicine chest” (25). A “belligerent man” (25) then asks if anyone in the town cares about social injustice and the inequalities caused by industrialization. Mr Webb explains that the gap between the rich and the poor is a regular topic of the town and that people do what they can to help each other. A lady inquires about culture and beauty in the town, and Mr Webb answers that while those things may not be actively created, the townspeople have a fondness for nature, birds, the seasons, and the sunrise.

Mr Webb exits, and the scene jumps to the afternoon. Everybody in town has eaten lunch, and Mr Webb enters again to mow his lawn. The town is calm as most people are at work or school. Emily is walking home from school with a few classmates and states that she has to go home and help her mother. She finds her father mowing the lawn and walks up in a sort of faux-elegant fashion. Her father tells her to “walk simply” (27), attempting to bring her back down to earth. She gives her father an obligatory kiss, who then exits. Emily begins picking flowers while George comes up Main Street playing with a ball. He bumps into an imaginary woman by accident, and the Stage Manager speaks for this imaginary person, scolding George slightly. George approaches Emily and compliments her speech in class earlier that day and notes how he can see her studying each night through her window. George asks if she can help him with his homework if they set up a “kinda telegraph from your window to mine” (29), and Emily obliges. He compliments her intelligence again and then tells her how he wants to take over a nearby farm. George exits, and Mrs Webb enters. Emily asks her mother if she thinks she is pretty, and Mrs Webb assures her that she is, noting that she would be ashamed if any of her children were not. The two exit the stage as the Stage Manager thanks them for their performance.

The Stage Manager makes another speech about the nature of the town as the lights dim to a spotlight around him. The Cartwrights are building a new bank and have decided to include a time capsule in the wall. Inside is a copy of Mr Webb’s newspaper, The Sentinel; an edition of The New York Times; a Bible; the Constitution; and all Shakespeare’s plays. He muses about the idea that people know little about their ancestors and how important it is to preserve writings for future people to behold. He vows to put a copy of Our Town in the time capsule so that “people a thousand years from now’ll know a few simple facts” (33) about the townsfolk. The Stage Manager wants to ensure that people will always know “the way we were in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying” (33).

In the next scene, a choir is heard in the background, directed by Simon Stimson, as George and Emily descend ladders up to the “second stor[ies]” of their homes and begin their schoolwork. Doc Gibbs is reading at the kitchen table. George asks Emily for help with his algebra. Emily remarks on the bright moonlight before George’s father calls him downstairs. Doc Gibbs asks George if he feels like he can be a farm owner if he cannot even help his own mother chop wood. George begins to cry, feeling guilty for how he treats his mother, and Doc Gibbs is assured that he will change his ways. He offers to raise his allowance to 50 cents a week because George is getting older.

Mrs Gibbs, Mrs Webb, and Mrs Soames—another choir member— walk down Main Street together after practice. They stop and stare at the moon together before Mrs Soames comments that Simon has been showing up drunk to choir practice. Mrs Webb insists that he has personal problems and they must not interfere. The three part ways, and Mrs Gibbs returns home. She invites her husband outside to “smell the heliotrope in the moonlight” (41). Mrs Gibbs again expresses her concern for her husband’s lack of rest, and the two chat about various things and then exit the scene.

In the final moments of Act I, George looks out his window at the moon as his sister Rebecca barges in to share a glimpse. She shares her theory that the moon is getting closer and ponders whether people see the same bright moon in other parts of the world. Mr Webb and Constable Warren stroll past each other on Main Street, commenting on the moon and the quiet. Simon stumbles up, half drunk, and Mr Webb offers to help walk him home. Simon barely acknowledges him before walking off and disappearing off stage. Mr Webb returns home to find Emily still awake and staring at the moon, telling her not to let her mother catch her up so late. The Stage Manager ends Act I.