| Fifth of July | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Lanford Wilson |
| Date premiered | April 27, 1978 (1978-04-27) |
| Place premiered | Circle Repertory Company New York City |
| Original language | English |
| Series | Talley Trilogy |
| Genre | Comedy |
| Setting | The Talley Place, a farm near Lebanon, Missouri. |
Fifth of July is a1978 play byLanford Wilson.[1] Set inruralMissouri in 1977, it revolves around the Talley family and their friends, and focuses on the disillusionment in the wake of theVietnam War. It premiered onBroadway in 1980 and was later produced as amade-for-television movie.
The play is part of the Talley Trilogy, a series of Wilson plays revolving around the Talley family ofLebanon, Missouri. The other plays, both set on July 4, 1944, areTalley's Folly, aone-act dialogue between Sally Talley and her husband-to-be, Matthew Friedman, andTalley & Son, the story of a power struggle between Sally's father and grandfather.
Kenneth Talley Jr. is agaydouble amputeeVietnam veteran living in his childhood home with his boyfriend,botanist Jed Jenkins. At the beginning of the play, he is due to return to his former high school to teach English, but has decided not to. Visiting Ken and Jed are Ken's sister, June Talley, and her daughter, Shirley, as well as Ken and June's longtime friends, John Landis and his wife Gwen, inheritor of a large industrial copperconglomerate. John is ostensibly visiting to purchase the Talley house for Gwen to convert to arecording studio, so that she can have a career as acountry singer. Unbeknownst to anyone but June, John and Ken, Shirley is actually John's daughter, and the visit is also his attempt to gainjoint custody of Shirley. Ken, meanwhile, believes that the singing career is a way of distracting Gwen so that John can take over her business. Other visitors include Weston Hurley, Gwen's guitarist, and Ken's aunt, Sally Talley, who still has her husband Matt'sashes in a candy box a year after his death. The play culminates with a "bidding war" between Sally and John for the house, after it is revealed that Ken plans on selling it to Landis. Sally ultimately outbids Landis and says she will give the house to Jed so he can finish his garden.
Fifth of July debutedoff-Broadway at theCircle Repertory Company on April 27 and closed on October 1, 1978. Directed byMarshall W. Mason, the cast starredWilliam Hurt as Kenneth Talley Jr.,Jeff Daniels,Amy Wright,Danton Stone, andJonathan Hogan, who also composed theincidental music for the production.[2] The production was designed byJohn Lee Beatty.[3] It ran for 159 performances.[2]
The play made itsBroadway debut at theNew Apollo Theatre on November 5, 1980, directed by Mason with Daniels reprising the role of Jed,Christopher Reeve as Ken, andSwoosie Kurtz as Gwen. Replacement actors for the role of Ken includedRichard Thomas,Michael O'Keefe,Timothy Bottoms, and his brotherJoseph Bottoms.Laraine Newman replaced Kurtz as Gwen.Kathy Bates was also a replacement, in the role of June. Swoosie Kurtz won theTony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play.[4]
Atelevision film was made in1982, directed by Mason andKirk Browning. The film stars Daniels, Kurtz, Hogan, Stone,Cynthia Nixon, Joyce Reehling,Helen Stenborg, andRichard Thomas as Ken, the role in which he succeeded Reeve on Broadway.
A revival, starringRobert Sean Leonard as Ken andParker Posey as Gwen, was included in theSignature Theater Company's 2002–2003 tribute season to Wilson.