Middletown

Response to Middletown
I found it interesting that Middletown was somewhere in between a
recreation of Our Town, while also mocking the play and its playwright,
Thornton Wilder. Our Town plays on the feeling of nostalgia by taking you
through the town of Grovers Corners, New Hampshire, and showing you the
ordinary lives of the townspeople. In a lot of different ways, Middletown can
be considered a hilarious and creative rethinking of this classic tale. For
instance, the Stage Manager is the narrator for Our Town, as is
acknowledged as a wholesome, knowledgeable figure in this fictional town.
In contrast, Middletown features the Cop acts as a narrator. During the first
scene, the cop is scene chocking out the Mechanic for no apparent reason.
The concept of “defamiliarization” is heavily drawn upon in this piece, as we
are taken from what seems to be an ordinary town with ordinary people, to a
town filled with eccentric personalities (the tour guide and cop characters)
and abnormal situations