On Thursday evening, I hosted eight friends in my living room.  We read the play “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder.  We had fun.  Maybe none of us had experienced the play before.  We jumped into the dialogue and the characters … brand new interpretations of both.

The photo is from the Internet, rather than the real us.

Much of “Our Town” centres on the love between George Gibbs and Emily Webb as the three acts unfold.  Teenagers … brand new adults … and nine years later.

Before we started, I told my friends that Emily’s words in Act Three particularly moved me.  I offered the group the opportunity to be Emily for the last part of the play.  Three of us wanted to take it on.  I wrote a number between one and ten on my pad and had them guess.  Witold got to be Emily.

Spoiler Alert

George and Emily married in Act Two.  Such love!  In Act Three, Emily has just died in childbirth.  As a dead person, she says some amazing things to Mrs. Gibbs, who has also died.  They’re watching the living people lead their lives … in the present and in the past.

Wilder knew much about life.  Emily speaks for him.

Live people don’t understand, do they?

They’re sort of shut up in little boxes, aren’t they?  I feel as though I knew them last a thousand years ago.

Look!  Father Gibbs is bringing some of my flowers to you.  He looks just like George, doesn’t he?  Oh, Mother Gibbs, I never realized before how troubled and how … how in the dark live persons are.  Look at him.  I loved him so.  From morning till night, that’s all they are … troubled.

I can go and live … back there … again.

I choose my twelfth birthday.

Oh, that’s the town I knew as a little girl.  And look, there’s the old white fence that used to be around our house.  Oh, I’d forgotten that!  Oh, I love it so!  Are they inside?

Mama, I’m here!  Oh!  How young Mama looks!  I didn’t know Mama was ever that young.

I can’t bear it.  They’re so young and beautiful.  Why did they ever have to get old?  Mama, I’m here.  I’m grown up.  I love you all.  Everything.  I can’t look at everything hard enough.  Good morning, Mama.

(Mrs. Webb)  But birthday or no birthday, I want you to eat your breakfast good and slow.  I want you to grow up and be a good strong girl.  That in the blue paper is from your Aunt Carrie.  And I reckon you can guess who brought the post-card album.  I found it on the doorstep when I brought in the milk … George Gibbs … must have come over in the cold pretty early … right nice of him.                                            

(Emily)  Oh, George!  I’d forgotten that …

Oh, Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me.  Mama, fourteen years have gone by.  I’m dead.  You’re a grandmother, Mama.  I married George Gibbs, Mama … But just for a moment now we’re all together.  Mama, just for a moment we’re happy.  Let’s look at one another.

I can’t.  I can’t go on.  It goes so fast.  We don’t have time to look at one another.

Good-by.  Good-by world.  Good-by, Grover’s Corners … Mama and Papa.  Good-by to clocks ticking … and Mama’s sunflowers.  And food and coffee.  And new-ironed dresses and hot baths … and sleeping and waking up.  Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it … every, every minute?

They don’t understand, do they?

***

Thank you, Emily

May my eyes open … and open again