When Thorton Wilder wrote that, "what is important here are ideas, not personalities; universals, not individuals," he was accenting the fact that when you look at the big picture, one life doesn't seem very significant. He realizes that once a person dies the world will keep going and new people will be born with new ideas and opinions.

Our Town represents Wilder's idea very well. For instance, the stage manager distances himself from the people in the town, but wants the audience to know so much about the town in general. We don't really get to know any of the characters until the end of the first act and even then its just little details. We never are able to see how the characters feel or what their emotions are. When we do get a little insight into an individual's life the stage manager talks about it as...