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영어

According to his theory of theatre in Some Thoughts on Playwriting, Thornton Wilder strongly believes that theatres in his days have been corrupted by a realistic trend. Instead, he praises the golden age of theatre such as the Greek and Shakespearean eras, when both goals of efficacy and entertainment were achieved. During these eras, theatre became a space for celebrating ritual or festival for all the people; therefore, Wilder wants to restore the spirit of ritual/festival in the theatre experience. Wilder’s theory of theatre is exemplified in Our Town written in 1938. In order to examine Wilder’s attempt to restore ritualistic spirit to the plays, I have applied well-known concepts of Victor Turner. Turner characterizes ritual and theatre as liminal phenomena(inbetween/threshold state) where participants experience communitas(“the modality of human being’s interrelatedness”). Furthermore, Turner considers that theatre and ritual share a common ground regarding their emphasis on repetition of human beings’ universal patterns. Our Town is a ritualistic play in that this play creates liminal phenomenon and communitas as well as it uses mime as symbol. Wilder removes realistic scenery and props; instead, actors in Our Town express situations through miming in almost empty space. Thus, actors’ mimed behaviors themselves become symbols of everyday life actions. Through Emily’s realization of life, which itself is a liminal phenomenon, the audience have an opportunity to deliberate on their lives with different and changed perspectives. Even though Emily cannot resurrect from death, the audience can “resurrect” from an ignorant stage like death, where they have not appreciated the significance of life.