Three Plays: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, and The Matchmaker (Perennial Classics) [Paperback]

Thornton Wilder (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 2, 2007 | Series: Perennial Classics

Three of the greatest plays in American literature collected in one volume

This important new omnibus edition features an illuminating foreword by playwright John Guare and an extensive afterword for each play drawing on unpublished letters and other unique documentary material prepared by Tappan Wilder.

Our Town—Wilder's timeless 1938 Pulitzer Prize-winning look at love, death, and destiny is celebrated around the world and performed at least once each day in the United States.

The Skin of our Teeth—Wilder's 1942 romp about human follies and human endurance starring the Antrobus family of Excelsior, New Jersey. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1943.

The Matchmaker—Wilder's brilliant 1954 farce about money and love starring that irrepressible busybody Dolly Gallagher Levi. This play inspired the Broadway musical Hello, Dolly!.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) was an accomplished novelist and playwright whose works explore the connection between the commonplace and the cosmic dimensions of human experience. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928 for The Bridge of San Luis Rey, the second of his seven novels, and received the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Our Town in 1938 and The Skin of Our Teeth in 1943. Wilder's hit play The Matchmaker was adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly! His work is widely read and produced around the world to this day, and his screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) remains a classic psycho-thriller. Wilder's many honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Reprint edition (January 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060512644
• ISBN-13: 978-0060512644
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.2 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #228,282 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) is an accomplished novelist and playwright whose works, exploring the connection between the commonplace and cosmic dimensions of human experience, continue to be read and produced around the world. His Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of seven novels, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, as did two of his four full-length dramas, Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943). Wilder's Matchmaker was adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly! He also enjoyed enormous success with many other forms of the written and spoken word, among them teaching, acting, opera, and film. His screenplay for Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) remains a classic psychological thriller to this day. Wilder's many honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Committee's Medal for Literature.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars American classics which scratch beneath the surface... August 2, 2000

By Ivan Askwith

Format:Paperback

It's hard to imagine that there's a soul out there who hasn't come across at least one of these plays in the course of public education or personal reading, but if you haven't then you should at least give them a chance and take a look. Plays aren't everyone's idea of pleasure reading, but this collection of Wilder's best-known three are among the best-known one-act plays in the American collection. Drawing at will upon the comic and the tragic -- often in the same breath -- Wilder's plays might have prompted the slogan of the recent (and acclaimed) "American Beauty", which implored viewers to "look closer." These three plays are good discussion pieces, palatable introductions to American theater, and insightful explorations into the potential of the theatrical medium.

A little more info on two of the three:

OUR TOWN happens to have been one of the first plays I ever actually studied in a drama class, and I have particularly fond memories of blustering through the part of Mr. Webb in our dramatic reading. The play, which focuses on the lives of the simple townsfolk in Grovers' Corner, New Hampshire, a dry New England town, begins with an observation of the daily lives of the townsfolk. In the second act, it goes on to portray the romance which develops between George Gibbs and Emily Webb, the young lovers who consummate their feelings in marriage at the end of the act. And in the third act, after Emily dies, she finds herself among the mourners at her own wake. Taken as a whole, Our Town shows the reactions of the austere New Englanders to all possible situations -- they are brought to life, portrayed in times of happiness, grief, and peaceful quiet. In addition, Wilder uses the play to make a statement about the futility of living in the past, and forcing the audience to deal with the concept that just like a show, life must go on. In the end, he says, truth can only be found in the future, which it is still in our power to influence and change. Our lives are our own to live, and we must learn to set our own course while we still can. (Of particular interest in this script is the role of the "Stage Manager", who both interacts with the characters and serves as a quasi-omniscient narrator. I think the idea of having a character exist on multiple planes might have been a Thornton first, at least in some regards.)

THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH is a little bit stranger and more avant garde. In a script unlike anything else that Wilder has ever written (to the best of my knowledge), the audience is presented with a detached look at man's natural reaction to crisis and stress. The play focuses around the Antrobus family, simple representatives of the every family, but with a few significant quirks -- the characters seem to be updated (or perhaps reincarnated) versions of the first family -- Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel -- and refuse to establish a consistent setting. Simultaneously set in the prehistoric Ice Age and on the boardwalks of Atlantic City (and by simultaneously I mean that there is no differentiation between the two), and paying no particular attention to the linear laws of time or space, the play draws upon so many stage and literary devices that it eventually makes the head spin. In a particularly powerful conclusion, the play comes entirely round circle, ending with the same lines on which it began, and implying that the entire cycle is about to repeat itself. And that is exactly the point Wilder was getting at in this bizarre and avant garde production -- no matter how much we change, as we evolve from cave-dwellers to farmers to civilized ladies and gentlemen, the more we stay the same. Our features change, but our natures do not. Both a confusing and intensely powerful piece of dramatic scripting, this play is worth reading at least twice. (To the credit of this script, I remember getting chills just reading it to myself for the first time, during certain climactic scenes.)

As for THE MATCHMAKER... I'm not as familiar with it, but I know it's a popular comic script for amateur theater troupes, and served as the basis for the musical comedy "Hello Dolly", in which a widowed matchmaker decides to take a second husband, and tricks him into proposing to her by making a show out of setting him up with another woman. Clever, but not as experimental as the other two...

All in all, this is a collection of plays that should be read at least once, if only so that you can say you didn't care for them. There's a lot here, and Wilder was a master of the short script, and a pioneer in American theater. Give it a shot -- check it out from your library if you're dubious about purchasing scripts you haven't read -- and see what you think,

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Classics that are deserving of the term November 14, 2001

By L. Runkle

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Skin of Our Teeth and Our Town both were prize-winning plays. The Matchmaker became one of the most popular musicals of all time - Hello Dolly. Thornton Wilder's plays are in production at countless high schools across the country, and that's a pity - few students have the maturity or insight to bring these words strongly to life.

Skin of Our Teeth, the story of the Antrobus family in stone age Atlantic City, NJ, deals with indomitable humanity, and how we can prevail against all odds, but especially against our own impulses. It also brings up the consolations of literature and of past times.

Our Town is a simple little play about love and death, and how life is composed as a series of moments. It is so important to live in every, every, moment.

The Matchmaker is about living life to the fullest, even in the midst of grief and aging.

This makes these plays sound dreadfully simplistic, and full of high-school style morality. Thornton Wilder's writing is full of irony, wit, grace, kind humor, and style. His writing has a deceptive simplicity and rhythm. Read these plays to bring some beauty into your life.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Three plays by Thornton Wilder September 1, 2009

By Sarah A. Sprafka

Format:Paperback

When I received this collection of plays by Thornton Wilder, I compared some of the text to an original acting script, and found that several changes had been made, apparently to make it more socially "correct". For example, in the introductory monolog to Our Town, the playwright's reference to the people living in Polish Town as "foreigners who come to work in the mill" had been completely deleted. I consider this an example of Bowdlerizing, and a big enough change in the text that it may be illegal. I was very disappointed.