At the time that Angels Fall was written and produced in the early 1980s, Lanford Wilson had already established himself as an exceptional dramatist with compelling Broadway plays such as The Hot l Baltimore (1973), The Fifth of July (1978), and Talley's Folley (1979). As Gerald Berkowitz notes in American Drama of the Twentieth Century, Wilson's plays, from the mid-seventies onward, had "the ability to depict the complex emotions and relationships of a group of characters through a domestic realism given a lyrical tone by a musical and poetic use of language." More than one critic has noted that Wilson's emphasis on family relations combined with lyricism and compassion evoke Tennessee Williams, a playwright Wilson deeply admired. His emphasis on the dignified struggles of ordinary people in contemporary times has lead drama critic Anne Dean, in her book Discovery and Invention: The Urban Plays of Lanford Wilson, to note...