Talley's Folly

Lanford Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Talley's Folly,currently revived by the Roundabout Theater Company at their Laura Pels Theater, is a sensitive two-hander about solitary people, very different and very similar. Even as Matt Friedman (Danny Burstein) and Sally Talley (Sarah Paulson) are obviously attracted to each other, they harbor their own secrets and have resisted falling in love. Until now.

Matt, a 42-year old accountant and Jewish immigrant, recalls that someone once compared people to eggs. They have to be careful not to bang up against each other or they might crack their shells and would never be useful again. But Matt’s argument is, “What good is an egg? Gotta be hatched or boiled or beat up into something like a lot of other eggs. Then you’re cookin’. I told him he ought not to be too afraid of gettin’ his yolk broke.”

In Talley's Folly, a 97-minute, no intermission, romantic comedy, Matt and Sally are fiercely protective of their shells. Matt was emotionally bruised in his life and has formed an aloof protective shell to keep the world away. Sally, a serious, liberal-minded 31-year old nurse, living in the midst of a wealthy, conservative Protestant family in Lebanon, Missouri, made up her mind that the world is dangerous and she should not expect much more of life and certainly not a serious love.

The story takes place on July 4, 1944, toward the end of World War II. It is one year after Matt and Sally first met but now, after they have been apart, Matt has traveled from his home in St. Louis firmed with his conviction to persuade Sally to marry him and share a life together. Throughout the year, she has rejected his letters, even his visit to the hospital where she works. Her resilience seems rigid, and some might think Matt’s quest for her hand is a folly, like Jeff Cowie’s setting in the deteriorating rococo Talley family boathouse where they are meeting. Matt, however, sees the boathouse – and their love – as a Valentine, but even for him, a complete, open commitment will prove harder than cracking an egg.

Watching these two talents is captivating. Danny Burstein, a three-time Tony Award nominee, recently appeared in Golden Boy. He is a triple-threat performer with comic, dramatic and musical talents that shone in last season’s Follies. He is no less impressive here, persuading Sally with unrelenting energy. With a slight Eastern European accent, Burstein displays the facets of Matt’s convivial crust covering his obvious pain and longing. From Burstein’s exuberant opening monologue promising the audience "a waltz one-two-three, one-two-three, no-holds-barred romantic story," director Michael Wilson has led these two well-matched dancers through a pas de deux of resistance and yielding, ending finally with an arms-open-wide happy ending.

Sarah Paulson (The Glass Menagerie, “American Horror Story”), the delicate, self-contained object of his affection moves gracefully through her objections, feeling that the world seems to doom any relationship between her and the bearded Jew with a slight accent. Her family already sees him as a “Communist,” and she is resistant to abandoning the Talley clan, as all-consuming as they are. More importantly, she is convinced that she does not know enough about Matt, who has been hesitant talking about his own early life, nor has she revealed what has made her so self-protective. Paulson’s interpretation of Sally is subtle as she reveals and retracts selected secrets, eloquently forming a portrait of restraint.

Jeff Cowie designed the neglected boathouse, now holding disused and neglected tools and a rowboat. Cowie’s costume designs from the era reflect the care both Sally and Matt took for this meeting, Matt’s gaudy new tie and a pastel silky dress for Sally. Rui Rita adds the lighting effects to make it into a Valentine for this love story.

Talley’s Folly premiered in 1979 off-Broadway at Circle Repertory Theater and moved to Broadway in 1980. Lanford Wilson received a Tony Award® nomination for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Hopefully, Wilson’s follow-up plays, The Fifth of July and Talley & Son will follow this memorable revisit of Talley’s Folly back to the New York stage.