(PIANO, WHOLESOME HEARTFELT THEME)
GK: Grovers Corners, New Hampshire, a morning in April, and Joe Crowell the newsboy has come by with the morning paper and the milkman Howie Newsome has just left a quart of cream at the Webbs' (FN OFF: Morning, Miz Webb! Giddup.) (HORSE HOOVES, SLOW, OFF). Doc Gibbs is just coming home from delivering twins up in Polish Town. And Mrs. Gibbs is waiting breakfast for him.
SS: Good morning, darling. How did it go?
TR: Easy as could be.
SS: I worry about you not getting your rest. (OFF) George!!!! It's almost time for school. Rebecca, I ironed you that nice blue gingham dress!!!
HM: Ma, I hate that dress.
SS: Oh, hush up with you.
HM: It makes me look like a sick turkey.
SS: Now, Rebecca, you always look very nice.
HM: I want to grow up and move to New York City, Ma, where I can wear a black dress and high heels and strange men will look at me on the street, and I'll give them a withering stare. Like that.
SS: I hope you don't make a face like that here. In Our Town.
HM: I'm tired of Our Town, Ma. I want a big city.
SS: George! Breakfast is on the table!
TR: Look out---- here comes that dang Stage Manager. The town Know-It-All.
GK: Grovers Corners. A morning in April. Spring is on the way.
TR (ASIDE): We're aware of that. Duh.
GK: Looks like crocuses coming up in Mrs. Gibbs's garden.
TR (ASIDE): They're tulips.
GK: Doc Gibbs just delivered twins last night up in Polish Town.
TR (ASIDE): We already know that.
GK: Doc Gibbs died some years ago. The new hospital's named after him. He's up in the cemetery there now in with a whole mess of Gibbses and Herseys.
TR: What did you just say?
GK: Wasn't talking to you, Doc Gibbs.
TR: Well, you were looking right at me.
GK: Talking to the audience.
TR: What did you say about me dying?
GK: It's a play ---- it employs shifting perspectives.
TR: Well, it's not what I consider good manners to tell a man that he's dead when he's sitting right here eating his breakfast.
GK: I'm the Stage Manager and I can see the future. That's how Mr. Wilder wrote the play.
TR: Well, you tell Mr. Wilder to mind his own business. And you tell me I'm dead one more time and I'll give you a kick in the pants you'll remember until the day you die.
GK: Sorry about that, but----
TR: I'm not dead. Not even thinking about it. Julia and I are going to take that trip to Paris that she's been wanting to take. And when we're there, we'll find out that the dollar is really strong and that we can sell this house in Grovers Corners and buy a fancy apartment in Montmartre and I'm going to paint watercolors. I studied French in high school, you know. (DR GIBBS, FRENCH)
GK: What did you just say?
TR: You're the guy who knows when everyone dies and you don't understand French?
GK: Were you just talking about me?
TR: Wouldn't you like to know?
GK: Anyway, you're not going to Paris.
TR: Am so.
GK: Are not.
TR: Am so.
GK: Are not.
TR: We are too.
GK: Are not. You read the end of the play? The cemetery scene?
TR: The play is a living thing.
GK: Not this one. It has an ending.
TR: You're not the boss of me.
GK: I'm the Stage Manager.
TR: Not no more you aren't. You see what I have in my hand?
GK: It's a pistol.
TR: Get your travelling clothes, Julia, we're gonna bust out of this town.
SS: But what about Rebecca and George?
TR: Let him take care of them. Mr. Know-It-All.
GK: Grovers Corners, New Hampshire. It's a Saturday, April, and up at the train station Silas is waiting for the 8:04 from Putney, Vermont---- starting to look like rain off to the west.....
TR: Oh shut up.
GK: What?
TR: Hurry, Julia----- got to catch that 8:04 to get to Boston in time to board the steamship to France.
(THEME IN)
GK: Will the Gibbses leave Grovers Corners for Paris? Or will he die of a perforated colon? Will Rebecca move to New York and become drop-dead gorgeous? Join us again soon for another episode of OUR TOWN.