Dim The Lights

Lanford Wilson has died.   He may not be the name that Arthur Miller was, or Harold Pinter or Tom Stoppard, for that matter, but I think he was one of the top playwrights of his time.

His best plays put together odd characters and let them interact.  For instance, his first full-length work, Balm In Gilead, using the greater openness of the 60s theatre, had a collection of prostitutes, crooks, junkies and others hanging out in a cheap diner. There's action, there's a plot, but it's the milieu you remember best.  Same for one of his best-known plays The Hot l Baltimore, about the various tenants in a rundown hotel waiting to be evicted.

Then there's Fifth Of July and Talley's Folly, two related works from the late 70s and maybe his most popular pieces.  They're set set in Missouri, where Wilson was from, and deal with related people. (The third part of the trilogy, Talley & Son, is not as interesting.) Fifth Of July is about yet another group gathering, this time at a character's childhood home.  They may not be junkies or hookers, but they're got their own problems, symbolizing the troubles and longings of Americans everywhere. (The play also dealt with homosexuality more openly than usual for the time.) Talley's Folly, which won the Pulitzer, is more intimate--a period piece about two people who shouldn't be right for each other but somehow are.

I'm not familiar with his more recent plays (anything since Burn This), but I guess it's good to know that even with Wilson gone, there's still more to explore.