Lanford Wilson, R.I.P.
I was saddened but not surprised to learn of the death of playwright Lanford Wilson. I knew through Marshall Mason that Wilson had been failing. Wilson was a Pulitzer Prize-winner, a founder of one of our most important theatres (Circle Rep), and a writer noted around the world — but somehow, his death didn’t make the home page of the Los Angeles Times website. A sad statement indeed.
The first play ever that I bought a ticket for was Wilson’s “Fifth of July,” in 1980 (directed by Marshall). It continues to serve as an inspiration — I’ve bought hundreds and hundreds of theatre tickets since then. In an odd way, though, that wasn’t my introduction to Lanford Wilson’s work; in 1975, Norman Lear adapted a sitcom from Wilson’s play “Hot L Baltimore.” The show concerned prostitutes, a gay couple, an illegal immigrant, and every other sort of inner-city urban entanglement in a cheap hotel, a milieu utterly foreign to my backwoods semi-suburban middle-class youth. The show came with a mature-audiences warning at the beginning, which guaranteed that my 13-year-old self was going to watch it.
The playwright leaves us on the eve of opening night of two revivals of his work: Steppenwolf is preparing to open “Hot L Baltimore” in Chicago, and “Burn This” is running right now at the Mark Taper Forum here in Los Angeles. A friend invited me for April 1st; I can’t make that date, but I’ll see it another night while it’s here. If you’re not in Chicago or LA, don’t fret; Lanford Wilson’s plays are always playing somewhere, and they always will.
March 26th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Hot L Baltimore was the television front window of some other things that were going on for me, in the year I started junior college. That same year, I saw the then complete filmography of John Waters, starting with 1969’s Mondo Trasho, 1970s Multiple Maniacs, 1972s Pink Flamingoes, and 1974s Female Trouble. Never again would I believe in conformity, television’s first depictions of an accepted gay male couple, Conchatta Ferrell was a prostitute with a conscience, a great gutteral laugh and big tits. The show was really funny, ever since then I’ve always wanted an old fashioned plug-in hotel switchboard, I still do.
After 1975, I began using the word bullshit a lot, because it occurred to me that conformity was.