A. R. Gurney is one of the few major playwrights to emerge in the 1960s and maintain a flourishing stage career four decades later. His plays continue to be performed widely Off-Broadway and in resident, summer stock, community, and academic theaters across the United States, as well as enjoying some international recognition. Although he is often dismissed by academic critics as an epigone, he is the only playwright of his generation to continue the tradition of high comedy. In contrast to leading American playwrights of the 1950s and 1960s, who generally took a psychosexual approach to character, Gurney concentrates on class as the major determinant of behavior. Rather than providing detailed individual character portraits, he often constructs representative social types and depicts their efforts to cope with change. Believing that women are adapting better than men, Gurney frequently contrasts women who are invigorated by new prospects with men...