ANGELS FALL by Lanford Wilson
Sequestering incompatible people on islands, in hotels or at roadside hash houses under duress is one of the hoariest devices known to drama. Vide, The Admirable Crichton, Grand Hotel and The Petrified Forest. The notion is that some transcendent revelation will descend on these characters as they sit and stew. The only revelation to be gleaned from the bulk of Lanford Wilson's plays, starting with The Hot I Baltimore, is that his characters are circusy clones of people originally conceived by William Saroyan, Tennessee Williams and William Inge. Their common plaint is that life has failed them,...