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Life & Arts

Wilson's résumé shows he knows much about the art of playwriting

by MAI BUI
The Daily Cougar

It was in a playwriting class at the University of Chicago in which Lanford Wilson heard his words come alive for the first time. And for many times after that, the thrill of having his words read on stage differed little from that moment.

Wilson, 69, one of the most successful modern American playwrights, selected the six plays that will be staged this year for the Edward Albee Playwright Workshop.

Born on April 13, 1937, in Lebanon, Mo., Wilson first discovered his talent for writing when he attended San Diego State University.

"All of my friends were writers; I immediately got connected with a whole bunch of guys and gals who were all in the writing program so in order to take a class with them, I took a freshman English class," Wilson said. "It turned out that I loved it. I knew I had a decent command of the language, but it never crossed my mind much to write."

After a year in California, Wilson moved to Chicago and stayed there for six years. During this time, he worked for an ad agency while writing stories during lunch hours.

Wilson, unlike other gay men during that time, found it easy to be gay because of his career.

"Fortunately, that was right when the two most famous writers in America were always on television; always on the late night interviews making fools of themselves were Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams. And so it was just almost like a requisite to be gay and write well," Wilson said.

After six years in Chicago, Wilson moved to New York in 1963 where he soon discovered and participated in a group of theatrical artists, one of which was Marshall G. Mason, at the Caffe Cino.

Wilson produced and directed several of his first plays, including the one-act Home Free. Wilson and Mason soon became creative partners and the two, along with friends, founded the Circle Repertory Company in 1969. The Wilson/Mason collaboration was a long-running success and the company produced various plays by Wilson, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Talley's Folly. The company also produced other projects with many of today's famous actors such as Swoosie Kurtz and Jeff Daniels.

Wilson's plays consist of recurrent themes of alienation and loneliness, with characters who must fight against the current of mainstream America because to their lifestyles and situations. Even with heterosexual characters, the parallel representation of alienation falls on these characters' religious preferences or interracial relationships.
 

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