“Talley’s Folly” is a Theatrical Triumph!

Talley’s Folly is a full-length romantic dramedy written by Lanford Wilson. In 1980, it won both the 1980 Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. This play is the second part of a trilogy of plays, which begins with Fifth of July (1978) and ends with Talley and Sons (1981).

This 97 minute, one-act, two-character play is an Ironman Triathlon event for actors since the characters remain on stage throughout the play, all the while going on a roller coaster ride of emotions from curtain rise to curtain fall.

In writing Talley’s Folly, Lanford Wilson followed the Aristotelian unities of action, place, and time. Set in a rundown Victorian boathouse in Lebanon, Missouri, on July 4, 1944, this play takes place during one transformative evening in the lives of Sally Talley, a 31-year-old nurse’s aide from a conservative Protestant family, and Matt Friedman, a 42-year-old, Jewish, immigrant accountant from St.Louis. Totally mismatched, Matt and Sally nonetheless begin an impassioned pas de deux that is enchanting to behold as this unlikely love affair unfolds, in real-time, right before our eyes. In his poetic opening monologue, Matt Friedman playfully foreshadows what is to come when he introduces the play as “a waltz … one-two-three, one-two-three; a no-holds-barred romantic story.”

Dressed in a three-piece suit and sporting a new tie, Matt is determined to win the hand of Sally, a woman he fell in love with a year before. Seeing Sally donned in a pretty, new dress fills him with a sense of hope that she might be happy to see him, but it isn’t long before he realizes that he is skating on thin ice with her. Finding a pair of old ice skates in the boathouse, Matt can’t resist trying them out. This funny, touching, awkward moment becomes an apt metaphor for the balancing act he must pull off for the rest of the evening if he is to win Sally’s heart.

Charles Grayson gives a tour-de-force performance as Matthew Friedman. Matt is a complex man, intelligent, courageous, sometimes jaded, and often funny. Throughout the play, he maneuvers his way around a minefield of emotional baggage that he still carries from his troubled childhood years spent in Europe during WW I. Mr. Grayson delivered his many comedic lines with expert timing and the heartwarming ones with great tenderness.

Miriam Salerno gave an electrifying performance as Sally Talley, a strong-willed, college-educated woman determined to keep her self-imposed spinsterhood intact. Ms. Salerno commands the stage from the moment she entered the boathouse with the force of hurricane winds right through to the heartrending finale, where she moved the audience to tears. Her intense facial expressions and body language added depth and layered nuances to Wilson’s earthy, caustic, often lyrical dialogue.

Stellar performances by Ms. Salerno and Mr. Grayson combined with Ann Lowe’s realistic period costume design and Roy Pancirov’s outstanding set design all added to the overall success of this show. Co-Directors Joann Scanlon and Jeanne Johnston’s brilliant casting and directing made this an unforgettable evening of theater.

You don’t want to miss the rest of The Summit Playhouse's exciting new season, including Elf Jr, Death by Design, and Bright Star.

Cindi Sansone-Braff is an award-winning playwright. She has a BFA in Theatre from UCONN, is a member of the Dramatist Guild, and is a syndicated theater critic. She is the author of three self-help books, Grant Me a Higher Love, Why Good People Can’t Leave Bad Relationships, and Confessions of a Reluctant Long Island Psychic.

.