The Play Our Town sets up the play in the first act by showing us a day in the town. They do this to establish relationships and use a lot of commentary to tell us what’s going on. They use this commentary a lot and frequently remind us that we’re watching a play. Anther remarkable thing they do is they cast the narrator as an actor. This makes the play a lot more engaging as the play moves on.
This makes the play move in a smooth way, although the acts make the jump a bit each time. To make up for these jumps each end of an act sets up the next, making the plot a lot smoother and making it easier to communicate the character’s emotions. For example, when we go from act one to act two, the first act has just ended with the establishment of a love affaire, which make the marriage way less out of context and keeps the plot smooth. In act two this is also used to smooth over how the characters change, like when George is in the middle of changing before the wedding. This is one of many ways the characters change when exposed to new ideas, such as during act three, Emily completely changes when she realizes that death isn’t the end.
Speaking of new ideas, the ideas introduced in act three create an experience to come away with, and is one of two main conflicts in the play. The presence of two conflicts is one of the things that that makes this play different. The first conflict happens in act two when George starts to change because of the upcoming wedding. The next conflict comes when Emily doesn’t want to forget about her past life, but then realizes that it is better to look forward to the future. This makes the play remarkable because they have two characters who both have a lot to do with each other, but who’s conflicts are separate.
In conclusion, I think that we can agree that this is a truly remarkable play that employs different techniques than regular plays.