SOURCE: Konas, Gary. “Tennessee Williams and Lanford Wilson at the Missouri Crossroads.” Studies in American Drama, 1945-Present 5 (1990): 23-41.

In the following essay, Konas compares the Missouri backgrounds of Wilson and Tennessee Williams and contrasts their uses of a Missouri setting in their major works.

Missouri is sometimes called the Crossroads State because of its central geographical position and because America's two greatest rivers, the Mississippi and the Missouri, meet there. It is an apt nickname for other reasons, as well; conceptually, Missouri is where several dichotomies and contradictions meet which make the state and its residents difficult to understand. The contradictions date back at least to 1860, when Missouri, a slave state, voted to side with the Union in the Civil War. The Gateway Arch in St. Louis (1965) reminds us that Missouri also straddles East and West, trying to combine conservative Eastern culture with a pioneer Western spirit. Moreover...