A great deal of the play is narrative that is directed to the audience by the main character Alan, Keith Nobbs, who has moved to San Diego to live with his estranged father and his father's new family. The father abandoned Alan and his mother when Alan was five. Alan manages 6 months in the house before he is kicked out by his father for suspicions of homosexuality. The writer Lanford Wilson has said it is his most autobiographical play. I loved it. Most especially impressed with Keith Nobbs and Kevin Kilner, the father and son.
Lanford Wilson, 4/13/37 - 3/24/11 is considered to be one of the founders of the off-off broadway theater movement. He began at the Cafe Cino in Greenwich Village with one act plays; the most successful was "The Madness of Lady Bright" which played for 200 performances. The title character is a drag queen. He then worked at La Mama and his most successful play there was 'Balm in Gilead". He co-founded the Circle Rep in 1969; won the Pulitzer Prize in 1980 for "Tally's Folly", and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2004. His most popular play was "The HOT L BALTIMORE" which ran for 1166 performances, and was made into a TV sitcom by Norman Lear. Other popular plays are "The Fifth of July" and "Burn This". In Lemon Sky you can see some of the techniques that made Lanford Wilson so remarkable. Besides the narrative quality from the main character as in "The Glass Menagerie", other characters in the play step forward and talk directly to the audience. My favorite 'bit', as Elaine Stritch might say, is the repetition of lines. Early scenes are played briefly. Lines used are repeated. It gives the play a poetic, musical quality, that catches you and brings you into the play even more.
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