Master Wilder and the Cabala by
MASTER WILDER AND THE CABALA is both an adaptation of "Our Town" playwright Thornton Wilder's first novel and a fantasy about its writing based on evidence and speculation. Commissioned by the Thornton Wilder Estate, it features TW as the central character, a bright and ambitious writer making a living as a French teacher in a private high school in New Jersey in 1925. His students and one of...
MASTER WILDER AND THE CABALA is both an adaptation of "Our Town" playwright Thornton Wilder's first novel and a fantasy about its writing based on evidence and speculation. Commissioned by the Thornton Wilder Estate, it features TW as the central character, a bright and ambitious writer making a living as a French teacher in a private high school in New Jersey in 1925. His students and one of their stowaway girlfriends wonder what he's up to in his house master's attic until he involves them in the novel-writing itself, first through play-acting scenes with them, then by basing characters and their romantic tragedies on their lives. Wilder's controlling father and liberating mother visit him and complete the cast, both of the play and of the characters who form the interlacing narrative of the novel. Wilder masks his own drama and even sexuality through his emerging novel, but the real people in his life see through it and him and force him to finally break free from all that traps him to become the universal writer capable of transcending time. The kaleidoscope of a play can be enjoyed with or without knowledge of Wilder and his many works, but it is likely that audiences will want to at least learn more about him after seeing the play.