For years Mr. Wilson's work did not interest me much; The Hot l Baltimore, his big hit, struck me as rather tired in its conventionality. But with 5th of July last year,… it seemed to me that Mr. Wilson was on to something: there was a new vividness, a new vigor….

Mr. Wilson's new vigor, if not his new vividness, has ebbed noticeably in Talley's Folly, however, and the old sentimentality has resurged.

On this occasion Mr. Wilson is quite up front about being sentimental; in an opening monologue, Matt tells us that we are in for a "valentine," a "waltz."…

Matt is the Jewish stereotype in its most idealized form: warm, wise, witty, well-read, gentle, bespectacled and shaped by suffering. But I am here to tell you that there still are warm, wise, witty, well-read, gentle, bespectacled, Jewish men around, and even the suffering seems right for...