The Long Christmas Dinner & Our Town ~ Thornton Wilder (27 of 24)

 

The Long Christmas Dinner is a play in one act written by American novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder in 1931. In its first published form, it was included in the volume The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act.

 Thornton Wilder, a three time Pulitzer Prize winner and the only winner for both fiction and drama.

The characters, as they are listed in the script:

Lucia

Mother Bayard

Roderick

Cousin Brandon

Charles, son of Roderick and Lucia

Genevieve, daughter of Roderick and Lucia

The Nurse

Leonora, wife of Charles

Ermengarde

Sam, son of Charles and Leonora

Lucia II, daughter of Charles and Leonora

Roderick II, son of Charles and Leonora

Setting: 90 years in the dining room of the Bayard House.

Length: ~35 minutes

Summary: A one-act drama about several generations of one family:

A play whose action traverses ninety years and represents in accelerated motion ninety Christmas dinners in the Bayard home. The development of the countryside, the changes in customs and manners during this period of time as well as the growth of the Bayard family and their accumulation of property sums up vividly a wide aspect of American life. It is a serious play lightened with humor of character; it has a human, tender, moving quality both appealing and forceful.

It was first performed jointly by the Yale Dramatic Association and the Vassar Philaletheis Society.

Currently, Samuel French, Inc., owns the rights to The Long Christmas Dinner.

Our Town:

The characters do not yet understand how brief life really is, and they spend the time going about their everyday lives, not leaving the town or fulfilling dreams they may have. Our Town also creates a theme of appreciating life. Because life is so brief, it's important that we don't waste it.

The quote "You've got to love life to have life, and you've got to have life to love life," from Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, encapsulates the essential connection between love and life.

Emily Webb – one of the main characters; we follow her from a precocious young girl through her wedding to George Gibbs and her early death. George Gibbs – the other main character; the boy next door, a kind but irresponsible teenager who matures over time and becomes a responsible husband, father and farmer.