After reading Wilson's play Angels Fall, read other "sealed-room" plays that confine characters to a particular place such as Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit and William Inge's Bus Stop. Compare the settings of these plays—a church, a spare room, and a snowbound bus stop—noting the use of a specific setting for its symbolic effects. In what ways do these confined settings illustrate a major theme found in the plays? What symbolism is provoked by the setting? What is the significance of the characters' inability to leave?

The historical period in which Angels Fall takes place is the height of the nuclear arms build-up between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1980s. Research this decade for other plays, works of fiction, and popular films that dramatize the effects of a possible nuclear catastrophe. In what ways are they similar...