humanity distilled through an American apparatus, but stil, essentially a global truth.
I really like and agree with the way you put that.
Wilder was very historically aware of the commonalities and even wrote about that very thing (I think it was in a commentary about the play). All of us since time immemorial are born, marry, and die. The rest is just details.
I bet Rich, an old theatre critic, narrows this intentionally to make it more accessible to his readers, though, in an attempt to bring us back to those home truths in the here and now, as Wilder did in '38 by using his stereotypical town, no scenery, and rather blank slate characters who are all of us. We were to see ourselves in Emily and George, and were invited into the play by the stage manager, if memory serves (lot of years since studying this play in grad school!). We needed to be reminded of those universal truths.
And as all good literature does, it's tapping into those truths behind the details of time and place that makes it work. |
