Thornton Wilder journal最新文献

{"title":"<i>Trumpet</i>: Revisiting and Reimagining Thornton Wilder’s <i>The Trumpet Shall Sound</i>","authors":"Jill Savege Scharff","doi":"10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0086","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0086","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Trumpet Shall Sound (1919–20) is Thornton Wilder’s first known full-length, published, and produced play. The action is straightforward: While their master is away on a prolonged journey, three servants open the house to roomers for profit, but then they live in guilt and fear of discovery. The play was awarded a college literary prize and it attracted the attention of talented director Richard Boleslavsky, but his production received mixed reviews. Wilder considered rewriting the problematic final act, but instead he moved on to Pulitzer Prize–winning literary and theatrical projects. This article revisits The Trumpet Shall Sound and shows its value as a harbinger of its author’s later genius. In structure and themes, this early allegorical work foreshadows Wilder’s mature exploration of the microcosm of the everyday connected through religious and mythic sources to the universal. The article also describes how its author followed the characters, dialogue, and symbolism and drew on input from scholars as she reimagined Wilder’s play as Trumpet, her 2020 and 2022 adaptations.","PeriodicalId":478170,"journal":{"name":"Thornton Wilder journal","volume":"218 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135195412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Thornton Wilder on Inculturation","authors":"John P. Mcintyre","doi":"10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0077","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Although not an explicit theme except in his essays, the affirmation of the democratic principle in modern society can be found throughout Thornton Wilder’s novels and plays. The hierarchy of class structure is undermined in his first, fifth, and last novels: The Cabala, The Ides of March, and Theophilus North. By the end of all three, the old power structure is at least temporarily suspended. In The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Our Town, and The Eighth Day, not only is it shown that death is the great equalizer, but also that the ordinary has as much value as the extraordinary. Finally, the possibility of transformation—from intolerance to tolerance—is dramatized in The Woman of Andros, Heaven’s My Destination, and The Matchmaker.","PeriodicalId":478170,"journal":{"name":"Thornton Wilder journal","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135195413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ancient Greece and 1920s America: A New Historicist Approach to Thornton Wilder’s <i>The Woman of Andros</i>","authors":"Alyssa Sedacca","doi":"10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article analyzes Thornton Wilder’s The Woman of Andros through a new historicist framework and proposes that American influences are present within the ancient Greek setting of Brynos. It examines Wilder’s 1920s America and relates it to a textual analysis of the novel with a focus on gender, immigration, and the intersection of both concerns. It places the anti-feminism and xenophobia present in Brynos in direct relation to the same sentiments prevalent in 1920s America. The treatment of Chrysis and Glycerium by characters such as Simo and Chremes is the central focus of the comparison. The article argues that Wilder uses Brynos as a distancing device, allowing readers to internalize the connections between contemporary American society and ancient Greek Brynos. This analysis contrasts with the overwhelming views of the novel as either escapist or universal.","PeriodicalId":478170,"journal":{"name":"Thornton Wilder journal","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135219664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"<i>Our Town</i>, Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, Arvada, Colorado","authors":"Brenton Kyle","doi":"10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0123","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0123","url":null,"abstract":"In his program note to the 2023 production of Our Town at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, the Center’s President and CEO Phillip Sneed suggests that the play’s central preoccupation is “what it means to be part of a community.” He sees this reflected both in the obvious sense, in that the play is an exploration of a particular community over the course of—and just after—a brief lifetime. But it is also true in a more subtle sense, as arts organizations such as the Arvada Center emerge slowly from the COVID-19 pandemic and embark on the effort to rebuild the communities that sustain them. Sneed (and Arvada Center artistic director Lynne Collins) picked Our Town as a vehicle for reigniting that spark of community, inviting audience members to once again “join with others in the communal experience of watching live theatre.”Director Geoffrey Kent—who also plays the Stage Manager—and his artistic team make several significant choices to reinforce both aspects of this theme of community (Kate Gleason served as assistant director). First, they have chosen to heighten the theatricality of an already highly theatrical work, thus doubling down on the type of experience that can only be had live. And second, their production foregrounds the way in which both the characters and the audience are members of the community of Grover’s Corners. Most of these choices succeed and combine to form a spare and lyrical, yet powerfully theatrical, production of Wilder’s most essential play.From the start, Kent and his team emphasized that this production would be a work of theater. The Black Box Theatre at the Arvada Center is a 200-seat space in the round. At the outset of the evening, rather than the Stage Manager entering onto a bare stage and setting the scene as in Wilder’s stage directions, this production began with the actors mingling among the audience as they entered. As curtain time approached, an actual stage manager (the stage manager was Christine Moore and the assistant stage manager was Melissa J. Michelson) wandered through, announcing five minutes to the actors, who gave back a “thank you, five.” There was no scenery—just a small electric organ next to one of the voms and a ghost light in the center of the stage (the set designer was Brian Mallgrave). The entire auditorium—stage and house—was brightly and generally lit (lighting design was by Jon Dunkle).As curtain time arrived, the cast gathered center stage in a circle around the ghost light to go through an abbreviated physical and vocal warm-up (Fig. 1). After a few minutes, they began singing Our Town’s signature hymn—“Blest Be the Tie that Binds”—on a communal “ooh” rather than singing the words (Emily Van Fleet, also playing Mrs. Gibbs, was musical director). When the hymn was finished, the Stage Manager leaped into action, ascending the three or four steps into one of the voms, beginning his opening monologue. As he discussed the impending dawn, he walked back down into the cent","PeriodicalId":478170,"journal":{"name":"Thornton Wilder journal","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135195411","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"<i>Our Town</i>, Syracuse Stage, Syracuse, New York","authors":"Eric Sterbenk","doi":"10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0128","url":null,"abstract":"This is, in some ways, the story of my experience with not one but two productions of Our Town. I am a bit ashamed to admit that I had never read nor seen a production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. It is a classic, of course, and I had a vague notion of what it was about before reviewing it at Syracuse Stage—but I had never read it, read a review of it, or seen it. I came to this assignment with a blank slate, with no knowledge or bias or history with the play. In some ways, I think, this made my encounter with the two productions a bit more honest and fresh. I did not have to overcome being forced to read the play in high school or having seen a bad production or even a good production of it somewhere else.Syracuse Stage is about a two-hour drive from my house. Wanting to do a bit more research before I saw the production, I did a quick internet search and found a PBS version of Our Town, with Paul Newman as the Stage Manager. Since I was driving, I could not watch it, but I could listen to it and was quickly entranced by Wilder’s gorgeous meditation on the sublime nature of everyday life, his treatise on how beauty can be found in the ordinary if you have the wisdom to see it. I got to the theater in downtown Syracuse in the middle of the third act of the PBS production, just as Emily was about to go back, back to her own life, back to her memories. Honestly, I was very excited. I did not have many expectations going into this experience, but I was so engaged with just listening to the play that I looked forward to having it brought to life.The Syracuse Stage is a professional theater company in downtown Syracuse. It receives funding from Syracuse University and considers itself “in residence” there. The company works closely with students and faculty from the university, and much of the cast of Our Town comes from the local theater community. It is a lovely theater space, with an inviting exterior courtyard that leads into a spacious lobby. The lobby is split into two areas: on one side, a traditional lobby leading directly into the theater, and on the other side, a large cafe-like space, lined with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out to downtown Syracuse. It felt open and warm and inviting, a bit different from many lobbies, which can feel cave-like and closed off from the outside world. I could picture people coming here to sit and read or study rather than coming to see the show. Hung from the wall of the lobby was a timeline of the company’s history, and I read this with interest, curious to see how long the company had been in production.Syracuse Stage has been putting on plays since 1974. In that time, it has produced over 300 plays in 48 seasons, with several world premieres in the mix. A number of noteworthy actors have graced its stage, including Jason Alexander, Lilias White, and Sam Waterston. It has an impressive history of productions, mostly well-known classic works of theater—plays by O’Neill, Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, ","PeriodicalId":478170,"journal":{"name":"Thornton Wilder journal","volume":"69 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135195414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Literary Attacks on Thornton Wilder","authors":"Stephen J. Rojcewicz Jr.","doi":"10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0046","url":null,"abstract":"Having been attacked by the Marxist critic Michael Gold in 1930 for ostensibly ignoring the social issues of the day, and by Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson in 1942 and 1943 with accusations insinuating plagiarism, Thornton Wilder responded primarily as a creative writer. Although his plays and novels reflect his own literary goals, some passages include subtle responses to his critics. His prefaces, personal correspondence, and memoranda for his attorneys directly responded to the accusations. The attacks, at times ad hominem and homophobic, and often made in bad faith, had consequences. Wilder experienced astonishment, disgust, and personal distress. As a result of one controversy, The Skin of Our Teeth failed to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949, Wilder did not win, an outcome some critics attribute to these controversies. Wilder reacted to these attacks in the same way he lived his life and composed his writings, with poise, dignity, sensitivity, creativity, and an affirmation of human freedom.","PeriodicalId":478170,"journal":{"name":"Thornton Wilder journal","volume":"86 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135194437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"<i>A Sapphic Ode</i> by Thornton Wilder: A Previously Unpublished Playlet","authors":"David Roessel, Eva Leaverton","doi":"10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The manuscript of A Sapphic Ode exists in the Thornton Wilder Papers at the Beinecke Library at Yale University and is published here for the first time. This article contends that the playlet is a response to the discovery of papyrus fragments of Sappho at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, in 1914. The playlet is of interest for two reasons. It shows Wilder engaging with a recent archaeological discovery, and how archaeology can be a part of literary history. It also shows a young Wilder creating a comedy with a contemporary setting, which differs in tone from the short plays he later collected in 1928 in The Angel That Troubled the Waters and Other Plays. The main intent of this article is to make this short play available to scholars and readers so that it becomes part of the discussion of how Thornton Wilder developed as an author.","PeriodicalId":478170,"journal":{"name":"Thornton Wilder journal","volume":"257 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135195415","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"<i>Our Town</i>, Center Stage, Baltimore, Maryland","authors":"Chelsea Mayo","doi":"10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0108","url":null,"abstract":"As theater companies began announcing their first live productions since the outbreak of COVID, I read a lament of “not another Our Town,” by a millennial theater professional whose perspective I often respect. I cringed. I love Our Town, and I always have, and while there are a number of classic plays that I think should be retired, I did not want that to be true of Our Town. I believed (and still do) that it is relevant, especially under thoughtful direction.Stevie Walker-Webb’s modern production at Baltimore Center Stage focused on the timelessness of the relationships while celebrating a particular community, just as Wilder did when he wrote the play. It was an Our Town for this town, as every cast member had “ties to Baltimore” (a claim also boasted by the Shakespeare Theatre Company of their production earlier this year in Washington, DC). Several of the lead actors grew up in Baltimore and returned for their first hometown production, while other actors were familiar faces who regularly work in DC and Baltimore, and a few cast members were appearing in their first roles at a large regional theater. The program included a “What Do You Love Most about Baltimore?” page with cast and staff responses. The production did feel communal, and the young actors were especially compelling. Strangely, for a play that usually has its most lasting moments in Act 3, this staging was more striking in its earlier scenes. I left with a much greater sense of how the people of Grover’s Corners were in their living than in their dying, and I yearned to experience both. Nevertheless, there was plenty to be admired in Walker-Webb’s production.Before the show began, Anton Volovsek’s spare set smartly established that this small town was an urban one. Two sets of concrete-looking stairs with black metal railings were peeking out from the wings on either side of the thrust stage, and there were six streetlights towering above the far sides. The wheeled staircases spun around to create various locations around Grover’s Corners throughout the play—mostly, front stoops and Emily’s and George’s windows. The Gibbs and Webb families had contemporary kitchen counters with barstools in lieu of kitchen tables. Black fabric stretched across the back of the stage, with a round cutout that suggested a low, full moon. Lighting designer Josh Martinez-Davis washed the stage in soft aqua and purple lights.The city steps and streetlights, and sound designer Nina Field’s pre-show soundtrack, which included Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” and Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It,” let us know it was a modern production before Lance Coadie Williams appeared as the Stage Manager in a jumpsuit, durag, and black sneakers with neon soles. Howie Newsome (O’Malley Steuerman) was a bike messenger who delivered milk on a road bike (with “Bessie” painted on the side). Ensemble members carried cellphones and duffel bags as they went about their daily activities during Williams’s opening speech, ","PeriodicalId":478170,"journal":{"name":"Thornton Wilder journal","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135195410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"EDITORS’ NOTE","authors":"","doi":"10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.v","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.v","url":null,"abstract":"Editorial| June 23 2023 EDITORS’ NOTE Thornton Wilder Journal (2023) 4 (1): v–vii. https://doi.org/10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.v Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation EDITORS’ NOTE. Thornton Wilder Journal 23 June 2023; 4 (1): v–vii. doi: https://doi.org/10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.v Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressThornton Wilder Journal Search Advanced Search We hope this issue of Thornton Wilder Journal finds you well in spite of the bloody war in Ukraine continuing in its sixteenth month and democracy struggling around the world. Working on this issue, we were reminded of an address Thornton Wilder delivered on 6 October 1957 in Frankfurt am Main when he received the Peace Prize from the Association of German Publishers and Booksellers. Anticipating present-day discussions of diversity, equity, and inclusivity, Wilder spoke against the dangers of privilege and elitism in Western culture with its “thousand-years-old lies” that often saw/proclaimed women, men, and children as inferior because of their “race or color or religion.” He added: “Democracy is not only an effort to establish a social equality among men; it is an effort to assure them that they are not sons, nor subjects, nor low–that they should be equal in God’s grace” (Wilder 73). As a twentieth-century writer... You do not currently have access to this content.","PeriodicalId":478170,"journal":{"name":"Thornton Wilder journal","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135195407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Women and Literature in Thornton Wilder’s <i>The Ides of March</i>","authors":"Paolo Simonetti","doi":"10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/thorntonwilderj.4.1.0029","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Although of the approximately 120 fictional documents and letters composing Wilder’s epistolary historical novel The Ides of March slightly less than half are ostensibly written by female characters, the author had to defend his work from at least one accusation of being unfair to women. The aim of this article is to investigate how Wilder gives voice to four famous women of ancient Rome—Clodia Metelli (supposedly Catullus’s model for the Lesbia addressed in his poetry); Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt; Julius Caesar’s aunt Julia Marcia; and the actress and courtesan Cytheris—by subverting traditional stereotypes and rewriting their personalities according to modern issues. Wilder’s Roman women are multilayered, ambivalent characters struggling to overcome gender stereotypes and discriminatory attitudes toward them through a strong connection with art and literature.","PeriodicalId":478170,"journal":{"name":"Thornton Wilder journal","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135195408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}