SOURCE: Jacobi, Martin J. “The Comic Vision of Lanford Wilson.” Studies in the Literary Imagination 21, no. 2 (fall 1988): 119-34.

In the following essay, Jacobi traces the evolution of a comic vision throughout Wilson's career, arguing that with comedy Wilson harmonizes his often-conflicted interests in the past and social misfits.

The small body of published criticism on Lanford Wilson's drama has frequently mentioned the playwright's recurring interest in two themes: a sympathetic depiction of the past, the traditions, and the cultural values which shape society, and the compassionate portrayal of misfits and outcasts, people not sympathetic to society. As Gene Barnett says in what is currently the fullest analysis of Wilson's plays,

He writes longingly of family love but focuses on the individual, the misfit, or the outsider. … His family exists in a society that became restless and rootless in the social flux and economic revival during and after the...