Years ago … Talley's Folly … would not have been considered a play…. The piece contains almost no plot in the ordinary sense of that term. Nevertheless, we are charmed….

Talley's Folly is sustained by the engaging humor of its writing…. [Wilson] is a prolific playwright and his plays … vary in large degree in form and content. But their keynote is a tenderness subdued and masked by quizzical objectivity. Wilson harbors a special sympathy for oddballs of every sort, but this is usually held in check in an effort to avoid outright sentimentality.

Harold Clurman, "Theater: 'Talley's Folly'," in The Nation (copyright 1979 by the Nation Associates, Inc.), Vol. 228, No. 20, May 26, 1979, p. 609.