Fifth of July
Encyclopedia
Fifth of July is a 1978
play by American playwright
Lanford Wilson
. Set in rural
Missouri
in 1977, it revolves around the Talley family and their friends, and focuses on the disillusionment with America in the wake of the Vietnam War
. It premiered on Broadway in 1980 and was later produced as a made-for-television movie.
This is part of the Talley Trilogy, a series of Wilson plays revolving around the Talley family of Lebanon, Missouri
. The other plays are Talley's Folly
, featuring Sally Talley and her husband-to-be, Matthew Friedman, and Talley & Son
, which tells the story of Sally's family in the same chronological period that Talley's Folly takes place.
paraplegic Vietnam veteran
living in his childhood home with his boyfriend, botanist
Jed Jenkins. At the beginning of the play, he is due to soon 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 copper conglomerate
. John is ostensibly visiting to purchase the Talley House for Gwen to convert to a recording studio
, so that she can have a career as a country singer
. Unbeknown to anyone but June, John and Ken, Shirley is John's daughter, and his visit has as much to do with a desire to gain joint custody
of Shirley as it does with the house. Ken, meanwhile, believes that the singing career is a way of distracting Gwen, so that John could take control of her businesses. Other visitors include Weston Hurley, Gwen's guitarist, and Ken's aunt, Sally Talley, who a year after his death still has her husband Matt's ashes
in a candy box. The story culminates with a "bidding war" between Sally Talley and John Landis for the house after it is revealed to everyone that Ken planned on selling it to Landis. Sally ultimately outbids Landis and says she will give it to Jed so he can finish his gardening.
at the Circle Repertory Company
on April 27, 1978, directed by Marshall W. Mason
and starring William Hurt
, Jeff Daniels
, Amy Wright
, Danton Stone
and Jonathan Hogan
, who also composed the incidental music. It ran for 168 performances.
The play made its Broadway
debut at the New Apollo Theatre on November 5, 1980, again directed by Mason with Daniels reprising the role of Jed, Christopher Reeve
as Ken and Swoosie Kurtz
as Gwen. Replacement actors for the role of Ken included Richard Thomas
, Michael O'Keefe
, Timothy Bottoms
, and his brother Joseph Bottoms
. Laraine Newman
replaced Kurtz as Gwen. Kathy Bates
was also a replacement in the role of June.
A television film was made of the play in 1982
, directed by Mason and Kirk Browning
, starring Daniels, Kurtz, Hogan, Stone, Cynthia Nixon
, Joyce Reehling, Helen Stenborg
, and Richard Thomas
as Ken, the role in which he succeeded Reeve on Broadway.
A recent revival, starring Robert Sean Leonard
as Ken and Parker Posey
as Gwen, was part of the Signature Theater Company's 2002-2003 season-long tribute to Lanford Wilson
.
1978 in literature
The year 1978 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, a humorous award given annually to books with unusual titles is created. The first winner was Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude...
play by American playwright
Theater in the United States
Theater of the United States is based in the Western tradition. Regional or resident theatres in the United States are professional theatre companies outside of New York City that produce their own seasons.- Early history:...
Lanford Wilson
Lanford Wilson
Lanford Wilson was an American playwright who helped to advance the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters...
. Set in rural
Rural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
in 1977, it revolves around the Talley family and their friends, and focuses on the disillusionment with America in the wake of the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. It premiered on Broadway in 1980 and was later produced as a made-for-television movie.
This is part of the Talley Trilogy, a series of Wilson plays revolving around the Talley family of Lebanon, Missouri
Lebanon, Missouri
Lebanon is a city in Laclede County, Missouri, United States. The estimated population in July 2009 was 14,292. The population was 12,155 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Laclede County. The Lebanon Micropolitan Statistical Area consists of Laclede County.-Geography:Lebanon is located at...
. The other plays are Talley's Folly
Talley's Folly
Talley's Folly is a 1979 play by American playwright Lanford Wilson, the second in his cycle, The Talley Trilogy between his plays Talley & Son and Fifth of July. Set in an old boathouse near rural Lebanon, Missouri in 1944, it is a romantic comedy following the characters Matt Friedman and Sally...
, featuring Sally Talley and her husband-to-be, Matthew Friedman, and Talley & Son
Talley & Son
Talley & Son is a play by Lanford Wilson, the third in his trilogy focusing on the Talley family of Lebanon, Missouri. It is set on July 4, 1944, the same day as Talley's Folly and thirty-three years prior to the events in Fifth of July....
, which tells the story of Sally's family in the same chronological period that Talley's Folly takes place.
Plot
Kenneth Talley, Jr. is a gayHomosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
paraplegic Vietnam veteran
Vietnam veteran
Vietnam veteran is a phrase used to describe someone who served in the armed forces of participating countries during the Vietnam War.The term has been used to describe veterans who were in the armed forces of South Vietnam, the United States armed forces, and countries allied to them, whether or...
living in his childhood home with his boyfriend, botanist
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
Jed Jenkins. At the beginning of the play, he is due to soon 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 copper conglomerate
Conglomerate (company)
A conglomerate is a combination of two or more corporations engaged in entirely different businesses that fall under one corporate structure , usually involving a parent company and several subsidiaries. Often, a conglomerate is a multi-industry company...
. John is ostensibly visiting to purchase the Talley House for Gwen to convert to a recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
, so that she can have a career as a country singer
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
. Unbeknown to anyone but June, John and Ken, Shirley is John's daughter, and his visit has as much to do with a desire to gain joint custody
Joint custody
Joint custody is a court order whereby custody of a child is awarded to both parties. In joint custody both parents are custodial parents and neither parent is a non-custodial parent, or, in other words, the child has two custodial parents. In the United States, many states recognize two forms of...
of Shirley as it does with the house. Ken, meanwhile, believes that the singing career is a way of distracting Gwen, so that John could take control of her businesses. Other visitors include Weston Hurley, Gwen's guitarist, and Ken's aunt, Sally Talley, who a year after his death still has her husband Matt's ashes
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
in a candy box. The story culminates with a "bidding war" between Sally Talley and John Landis for the house after it is revealed to everyone that Ken planned on selling it to Landis. Sally ultimately outbids Landis and says she will give it to Jed so he can finish his gardening.
Production history
Fifth of July debuted in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
at the Circle Repertory Company
Circle Repertory Company
The Circle Repertory Company, originally named the Circle Theater Company, was a theatre company in New York City that ran from 1969 to 1996. It was founded on July 14, 1969, in Manhattan, in a second floor loft at Broadway and 83rd Street by director Marshall W...
on April 27, 1978, directed by Marshall W. Mason
Marshall W. Mason
Marshall W. Mason is an American theater director, the founder and for eighteen years, artistic director of the Circle Repertory Company in New York City....
and starring William Hurt
William Hurt
William McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...
, Jeff Daniels
Jeff Daniels
Jeffrey Warren "Jeff" Daniels is an American actor, musician and playwright. He founded a non-profit theatre company, the Purple Rose Theatre Company, in his home state of Michigan...
, Amy Wright
Amy Wright
Amy Wright is an American actress. She has appeared in such films as The Deer Hunter, Breaking Away, The Amityville Horror, Heartland, Wise Blood, Stardust Memories, The Accidental Tourist, Hard Promises, Crossing Delancey and Miss Firecracker.Wright is married to actor Rip Torn and the couple...
, Danton Stone
Danton Stone
Danton Stone is an American veteran stage, film and television actor.-Stage plays:*Fifth of July *Angels Fall *One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...
and Jonathan Hogan
Jonathan Hogan
Jonathan Hogan is an American actor.Born in Chicago, Illinois, Hogan made his New York City stage debut in the off-Broadway Circle Repertory Company's highly successful production of Hot L Baltimore...
, who also composed the incidental music. It ran for 168 performances.
The play made its Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debut at the New Apollo Theatre on November 5, 1980, again directed by Mason with Daniels reprising the role of Jed, Christopher Reeve
Christopher Reeve
Christopher D'Olier Reeve was an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author and activist...
as Ken and Swoosie Kurtz
Swoosie Kurtz
Swoosie Kurtz is an American actress. She began her career in theater during the 1970s and shortly thereafter began a career in television, garnering ten nominations and winning one Emmy Award. Her most famous television project was her role on the 1990s NBC drama Sisters...
as Gwen. Replacement actors for the role of Ken included Richard Thomas
Richard Thomas (actor)
Richard Earl Thomas is an American actor, best known for his role as budding author John-Boy Walton in the CBS drama The Waltons.- Early life :Thomas was born Richard Earl Thomas in New York,...
, Michael O'Keefe
Michael O'Keefe
Michael Raymond O'Keefe is an American film and television actor.- Early life :O'Keefe was born Raymond Peter O'Keefe, Jr. in Mount Vernon, New York, the oldest of seven children in a devoutly Roman Catholic Irish American family. His father was a law professor at Fordham University, as well as...
, Timothy Bottoms
Timothy Bottoms
-Early life:Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, California, the eldest son of Betty and James "Bud" Bottoms, who is a sculptor and art teacher. He is the brother of actors Joseph Bottoms , Sam Bottoms and Ben Bottoms . In 1967, Bottoms toured Europe as part of the Santa Barbara Madrigal...
, and his brother Joseph Bottoms
Joseph Bottoms
Joseph Bottoms is an American actor who won the 1975 Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actor for his role in The Dove...
. Laraine Newman
Laraine Newman
Laraine Newman is an American comedienne, actress, and writer, and was part of the original Saturday Night Live cast.-Personal life:...
replaced Kurtz as Gwen. Kathy Bates
Kathy Bates
Kathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates is an American actress and director.After several small roles in film and television, Bates rose to prominence with her performance in Misery , for which she won both the Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe...
was also a replacement in the role of June.
A television film was made of the play in 1982
1982 in television
The year 1982 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1982.For the American TV schedule, see: 1982-83 American network television schedule.-Events:...
, directed by Mason and Kirk Browning
Kirk Browning
Kirk Browning was an American television director and producer who had hundreds of productions to his credit, including 185 broadcasts of Live from Lincoln Center....
, starring Daniels, Kurtz, Hogan, Stone, Cynthia Nixon
Cynthia Nixon
Cynthia Ellen Nixon is an American actress, known for her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series Sex and the City . She has received two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, and a Grammy Award....
, Joyce Reehling, Helen Stenborg
Helen Stenborg
Helen Joan Stenborg was an American actress of stage, screen, and television. She occasionally acted with her husband, actor Barnard Hughes , to whom she was married from 1950 until his death in 2006; they had two children.-Career:Stenborg appeared on stage in revivals of A Doll's House, A Month...
, and Richard Thomas
Richard Thomas (actor)
Richard Earl Thomas is an American actor, best known for his role as budding author John-Boy Walton in the CBS drama The Waltons.- Early life :Thomas was born Richard Earl Thomas in New York,...
as Ken, the role in which he succeeded Reeve on Broadway.
A recent revival, starring Robert Sean Leonard
Robert Sean Leonard
Robert Sean Leonard is an American actor, who has regularly starred in Broadway and off-Broadway productions. Since 2004 he has played the role of Dr. James Wilson on the TV series House...
as Ken and Parker Posey
Parker Posey
Parker Christian Posey is an American actress. She became known during the 1990s after a series of roles in several well-received independent films. As a result, she has often been referred to as the "Queen of the Indies"....
as Gwen, was part of the Signature Theater Company's 2002-2003 season-long tribute to Lanford Wilson
Lanford Wilson
Lanford Wilson was an American playwright who helped to advance the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters...
.