Lemon Sky

by Lanford Wilson

At seventeen, Alan visits the California home of his father and his father's former mistress turned wife. His father's life now centers around his two young sons, a tiresome job at an aircraft plant, and two teenage girls who are boarded with the family by the state. Alan has come expecting to go to school full time and work part time at the plant, having accepted his father's encouragement to do so. But the older man is incapable of honesty, least of all emotional honesty, and his lies about school are worth about as much as his lies about love. In the end, his cruelty, insecurity and lechery bring on an inevitable collision that destroys all that the father and son had hoped for. Alan is driven away once more, embittered by the knowledge that he must live without the father he so desperately wants and needs.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Lanford Wilson was an American playwright, considered one of the founders of 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.

Reviews

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Family Drama, capitalized.

[Bobby Keniston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally produced off-broadway to rave reviews but poor sales (it closed after only 17 performances) in 1970, "Lemon Sky" is, in my opinion, an underappreciated gem from one of the best American playwrights of the last 100 years. The show fared better in Chicago, but it will never be known as well Wilson's bigger successes like "The Hot l Baltimore" and "Burn This." Still, it is a family drama well told with no fourth wall to speak of, and very open about the fact that it is, in fact a play. But this only serves to make the reader or audience feel closer to the characters, when, so often, such a device almost feels like a distancing mechanism.

Would love to see some revive this some day.

[Catalina Westendorf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lemon Sky was written about my family. Lanford is my great uncle. I never met him because I was only 4 years old when he died. The names have been changed in this but yeah. it was written about my family.

[Zzzzz Zzzzz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good.

[Anthony Salazar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slow beginning with a powerful ending.