Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Wilson, Lanford (Vol. 14) - Harold Clurman

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HAROLD CLURMAN

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.

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1. Introduction
2. Catharine Hughes
3. Richard Eder
4. Edith Oliver
5. John Simon
6. Erika Munk
7. Edith Oliver
8. Julius Novick
9. John Simon
10. Harold Clurman
11. Stanley Kauffmann
12. Copyright

1. Lanford Wilson