STAGEnA Distant Passionnby David KaufmannLanford Wilson is consistently givennthe respect reserved for “great” Americannplaywrights, but the distinction is andubious honor at best. Each Wilsonnpiece is overly scrutinized and judgednultimately as being a notch below whatnit might have been. Revivals of earliernneglected works become causes forncelebration, but here too, there is alwaysna danger that the earlier plays —nwhile they may be perceived as harboringnincipient signs of later thematicndevelopments — are also considerednnaive and not quite up to par with thenlater work.nIf critical success is the surest path toncritical failure, the dilemma of “greatness”nperpetuates itself as new worksnare greeted with the kind of enthusiasticnanticipation that even a Chekhovnwould be hard-pressed to live up to. Annew Wilson play will almost certainlynfail to live up to past successes; it willneven more certainly fail to make goodnon his earlier promise. For such is thenfate of “great” American playwrights,npredetermined and dictated by the relentlessnfall-from-grace attitude ofnAmerican theater criticism.nThe belief that Wilson has more tonoffer suggests he is less than himself.nViewed as better than the “rest,” thenone playwright Wilson will forever bencompeting against is the image of LanfordnWilson, that important dramatist,nas created by the critics who insist thatnhe fulfill their requirements.nFueled by critical success and popularnattention, Wilson’s reputationnpicked up steam in the 70’s, beginningnwith The Hot I Baltimore in 1973, andncontinuing with The Mound Buildersn(1975), Sth of ]uly (1978), andnTalley’s Folly (1979). Confirmation ofnhis popularity came when The Hot InBaltimore was realized as a TV series.nHe received his first Pulitzer Prize fornTalley ‘s Folly — a one-act drama withnonly two characters and 60 pages ofndialogue — one of his more modestnpieces.nBy all standards, his two subsequentnworks were less successful. Angels Fall,nwhich closed soon after it opened onnBroadway in 1983, employed a GrandnHotel or Ship of Fools motif to bringntogether six disparate characters seekingnsanctuary in a New Mexico churchnduring a nuclear plant accident in thenvicinity. A Tale Told (1981), offered asnthe third work in the so-called “TalleynTrilogy,” occurs on the same July 4,n1944, evening as Talley’s Folly, also onnthe Talley estate in Lebanon, Missourin(Wilson’s hometown). While SallynTalley is working out her betrothal tonMatt Friedman at the “oldboathousenat the Talley Place” in Talley’s Folly,nthree generations of threatened Talleysnin the house proper are contendingnwith the possible takeover of the familynbusinesses. Though A Tale Told wasnrevised in 1985 as Talley & Son, itncould not surmount the problems ofncontrivance shared with Lillian Hellman’snThe Little Foxes, of which itnseemed more than a little reminiscent.nThirty-three years and one day followingnthe 1944 evening of A Tale Toldnand Talley’s Folly, some of the Talleysnare dealing with the sale of the housenitself in Sth of July, a far more felicitousnwork written earlier in the oeuvre.nFollowing Wilson’s success in then70’s, the intervening years have seen annumber of Wilson revivals. For itsnformat and sensitivity. Lemon Skyn(1970) has been justifiably comparednwith Tennessee Williams, and particularlynThe Glass Menagerie. In Balm innGilead, his first full-length playn(1965), Wilson achieved an uncannynverisimilitude recreating the low-lifenactivities at a New York, Upper WestnSide coffee shop. In some “notes” tonthe published script, Wilson explained,n”Within the general large pattern thenpeople who spend their nights at thencafe have separate goals and separatencharacters but together they constitutena whole, revolving around some commonncenter. They are the riffraff, thenbums, the petty thieves, the scum, thenlost, the desperate, the dispossessed,nthe cool; depending on one’s attitudenthere are a hundred names that couldndescribe them.” Besides filling thenstage with no fewer than 25 characters,nWilson’s theatrical innovation in Balmnin Gilead was to load the script withnoverlapping dialogue.nIn The Mound Builders (1975),nWilson chose an archaeological dig innThe cast of Lanford Wilson’s latest play, Burn This: (l-r) John Malkovich, JoannAllen, Lou Liberatore, and Jonathan Hogan.nnnMARCH 1988 / 47n