SOURCE: Schvey, Henry I. “Images of the Past in the Plays of Lanford Wilson.” In Essays on Contemporary American Drama, edited by Hedwig Bock and Albert Wertheim, pp. 225-40. Munich: Max Hueber Verlag, 1981.

In the following essay, Schvey examines the thematic unity in Wilson's plays from The Hot l Baltimore through Talley's Folley.

With more than thirty plays to his credit since he began writing for the stage in 1963, Lanford Wilson is almost certainly the most prolific of the younger generation of American playwrights and among the very few who have made the transition from Off-Off Broadway experimental theaters (the Caffe Cino and La Mama Experimental Theatre Club) to widespread commercial and critical success. However, despite the largely favorable reviews his plays have enjoyed since 1973 (when he won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play with The Hot l Baltimore) and despite his continuingly...