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The author, Thornton Wilder once said “I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being”. Wilder uses a device, a Stage manager, to guide the audience through the daily lives of two families, the Gibbs, and the Webbs. We follow the life of Emily Gibb from teenager to clever and beautiful young woman; we see her childhood friendship with George Webb blossom into love. On the day of their wedding, Emily’s father says to George, “My father told me on my wedding day to keep my wife in line and show her who is in charge! I did the opposite and have been happy ever since”. Then Wilder breaks our hearts by allowing Emily to die in childbirth. At her funeral the Stage Manager allows Emily’s wish to spend just one more day on earth, but before the end of the day, she wants to go back to the grave. The living just don’t know how to appreciate the joys of life she concludes. In the course of the play we meet love, hate, death, suicide, every tragedy that can befall mankind, and yet we agree with the Stage Manager when he says, “You’ve got to love life to have life, and you’ve got to have life to love life”. Blest be the ties that bind…
CLIVE GERAGHTY. |