SOURCE: Isherwood, Charles. Review of Fifth of July, by Lanford Wilson. Variety (10-16 February 2003): 44.

In the following review, Isherwood finds Fifth of July timeless.

Written first, Fifth of July is chronologically the last in Wilson's trilogy of major plays about Missouri's Talley family. The first act takes place on the evening of Independence Day in 1977, the second the morning after.

The timing—and title—are suggestively symbolic: They hint at the play's understated ambitions as an exploration of the collective emotional hangover that followed the ebullient hopefulness of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Through the dislocated lives of its characters, Wilson is examining the state of the American psyche in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. But there is nothing polemical about the writing—Wilson simply weaves these themes naturally into the nubby fabric of the writing.

It's all the more effective for that subtlety, and for...