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عمارت تالی
عمارت تالی کمدی رمانتیکی است که شبی را از زندگی دو دلداده مت فریدمن و سالی تالی، به نمایش میگذارد. داستان در قایقخانهٔ ویکتوریایی متروکهای کنار رودخانهای آرام کمی دورتر از خانهٔ تالیها رخ میدهد؛ سال ۱۹۴۴ است. مت حسابداری اهل سنت لوییس است و آمده تا عشقش را به سالی، دختر دل نازک اما دودل خانواده، بازگو کند. مت کتاب خوان، دانا، کاملا راست گو و به طرز لذت بخشی شوخ است و پاسخ منفی سالی را به این پایه که خانوادهاش هرگز به ازدواج آنها راضی نمیشوند نمیپذیرد. او آرام آرام اما فریبنده و سرسخت با گفتن اسرار درونش به آن که دوست میدارد بر استدلالهای سالی پیروز میشود و در برابر رازهای درون سالی را در مییابد. او رفته رفته سالی را به امکان ساختن عشقی شیرین با یکدیگر آگاه میکند تا در پایان نمایش آشکار میشود که آنها دو روحاند در یک بدن و اینکه واقعا همدیگر را بازیافتهاند - دو «مرغ عشق وارفته» که ما در یگانگی شان دوستیای به نهایت نادر در روابط انسانی میبینیم.
82 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
3 people are currently reading
383 people want to read
About the author
Lanford Wilson
54 books26 followersLanford Wilson was an American playwright, considered one of the founders of the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
September 3, 2025
This is a waltz, remember, one-two-three, one-two-three.
Talley's Folly ~~~ Lanford Wilson
Matt Friedman has problem; he can’t breathe. Why? Well, he’s discovered he can’t breathe without Sally Talley in his life. In order for him to go on, Matt needs Sally.
Lanford Wilson’s 1980 romantic dramedy concerns two lovers coming to terms with who they are and figuring out whether or not they belong together. Wilson brilliantly balances heavy raw moments with light-hearted repartee that emphasizes the characters’ eccentricities without bogging down the storyline.
The setting is Lebanon, Missouri, 1944. Awkward Matthew Friedman has come down from St. Louis to speak with his summer lover, the reluctant Sally Talley. They meet at her family’s Victorian boathouse, or folly, where they argue about their feelings for one another. She misinterprets his arguments, demonstrating a second personal folly of her own. Heartfelt conversations lead to revelations of troubled pasts as Matt and Sally discover what it might really take to be together.
What I like best about Talley’s Folly is nothing to gets in the way of two people talking. It is a simple story told in 90 minutes we go from Matt telling us, before Sally appears, that if all goes well, this will be a waltz. He is not, he says, a romantic. Then he spends the next 90 minutes being romantic. He entices. He jests. He enlightens. And when all else fails he is honest about his life, how he came to be who he is, and what the stakes are. He came from very far away, and has a tale that is so sad he would rather not tell it at all. But he does.
And it is this honesty that finally filters down through Sally’s great wall, until she is forced to lower her guard and lay her own sad tale on the table.
Turns out that neither listener much cares about the other’s sad tale. And I say that in the best possible way.
Talley’s Folly is an intimate look at a lover’s quarrel between two people who come from different worlds. The play dives deeply into the more complicated aspects of forming and staying in a relationship, including recognizing and seizing your moment for love, and understanding each other’s shortcomings.
Talley's Folly ~~~ Lanford Wilson
Matt Friedman has problem; he can’t breathe. Why? Well, he’s discovered he can’t breathe without Sally Talley in his life. In order for him to go on, Matt needs Sally.
Lanford Wilson’s 1980 romantic dramedy concerns two lovers coming to terms with who they are and figuring out whether or not they belong together. Wilson brilliantly balances heavy raw moments with light-hearted repartee that emphasizes the characters’ eccentricities without bogging down the storyline.
The setting is Lebanon, Missouri, 1944. Awkward Matthew Friedman has come down from St. Louis to speak with his summer lover, the reluctant Sally Talley. They meet at her family’s Victorian boathouse, or folly, where they argue about their feelings for one another. She misinterprets his arguments, demonstrating a second personal folly of her own. Heartfelt conversations lead to revelations of troubled pasts as Matt and Sally discover what it might really take to be together.
What I like best about Talley’s Folly is nothing to gets in the way of two people talking. It is a simple story told in 90 minutes we go from Matt telling us, before Sally appears, that if all goes well, this will be a waltz. He is not, he says, a romantic. Then he spends the next 90 minutes being romantic. He entices. He jests. He enlightens. And when all else fails he is honest about his life, how he came to be who he is, and what the stakes are. He came from very far away, and has a tale that is so sad he would rather not tell it at all. But he does.
And it is this honesty that finally filters down through Sally’s great wall, until she is forced to lower her guard and lay her own sad tale on the table.
Turns out that neither listener much cares about the other’s sad tale. And I say that in the best possible way.
Talley’s Folly is an intimate look at a lover’s quarrel between two people who come from different worlds. The play dives deeply into the more complicated aspects of forming and staying in a relationship, including recognizing and seizing your moment for love, and understanding each other’s shortcomings.
November 16, 2020
I saw the original Broadway production with Judd Hirsch and Trish Hawkins in 1979.
It is memorable as being one the best articulations of day-to-day human decency I have seen on stage.
Lanford Wilson will have to slug it out with Sam Shepard for Best American Playwright of the last quarter of the 20th Century.
It is memorable as being one the best articulations of day-to-day human decency I have seen on stage.
Lanford Wilson will have to slug it out with Sam Shepard for Best American Playwright of the last quarter of the 20th Century.
August 13, 2013
Quick read and I think best to read it all in one sitting if possible as it's a one-act play with no intermission. I'm not really sure how to rate or review it as this isn't the kind of thing I usually read but I appreciated that the two characters had different dialogue styles. It was cool to read something different like this - I haven't read a play since high school or maybe college.
May 26, 2016
I know this won the Pulitzer, but I wasn't taken in by it especially. It just feels like things I've read and seen a million times over. You know from the beginning that these two are intended to be together because it's a play with two people. Which means there isn't very much conflict and challenge or at least while reading it I didn't feel like there was. It's the story of two outsiders finding something in common. It didn't feel compelling, although very well written and I have every intention of trying to see it onstage.
July 24, 2017
One of the most charming and heartwarming plays I have ever read!
August 8, 2013
My favorite Lanford Wilson play.
But I have never seen a good production.
I've seen 3 or 4 sappy ones.
But the play needs to be honest not sappy.
Part of a trilogy.
But I have never seen a good production.
I've seen 3 or 4 sappy ones.
But the play needs to be honest not sappy.
Part of a trilogy.
August 18, 2011
I got the opportunity to work on this show fairly extensively as a director. I loved this sad love story from the first time I read it to the last performance. It is a story of two different people who hide so much in fear of what the other may think. Little do they know that neither really care. Their love looks beyond. With Matt Friedman witty, joker, Jewish accountant in his forties and Sally Talley, sweet, 32 nurses aid, you couldn't have any more different people. But the enchanting Talley Boathouse has brought them together yet again, a year after they have met. They are book too afraid to completely admit how much they truly care and love each other. They are afraid that their past as hurt their chances at any kind of love. Landford Wilson has written such a beautiful love story that shows the frailties that make us human and how they can be combated if we just fight!
April 20, 2017
Talley’s Folly
A Play by Lanford Wilson
As romantic as can be, and also a little sad.
Two perfect introverts, a little past their prime, each know they love the other, but don’t know how to open their heart and say it.
Matt takes the initiative talking and walking to and fro in the old boathouse, the scene where they met. Sally keeps asking about his past life, and it takes a while before Matt explains why at forty-two he does not have a wife and six children. It is such a heartbreak story that Sally does not want to believe it and gets angry, but then she is pushed into telling why a sweet girl from a rich family, she is not married at thirty-one, and she also has an unfortunate story to tell.
Beautiful dialogs, good reading for all the romantic souls out there.
A Play by Lanford Wilson
As romantic as can be, and also a little sad.
Two perfect introverts, a little past their prime, each know they love the other, but don’t know how to open their heart and say it.
Matt takes the initiative talking and walking to and fro in the old boathouse, the scene where they met. Sally keeps asking about his past life, and it takes a while before Matt explains why at forty-two he does not have a wife and six children. It is such a heartbreak story that Sally does not want to believe it and gets angry, but then she is pushed into telling why a sweet girl from a rich family, she is not married at thirty-one, and she also has an unfortunate story to tell.
Beautiful dialogs, good reading for all the romantic souls out there.
June 17, 2009
It's a warm summer evening, 1944, and a man and woman meet in a boathouse, and tell each other the secrets of their lives. This is a charming and thought-provoking play about the importance of opening up and letting other people into one's life.
May 28, 2011
1980 Pulitzer set in Lebanon, Missouri 1944. A love story between a 31-year-old Sally Talley and mysteriously foreign Matt Friedman. I'm a sucker for unlikely love stories...Remind me to find somewhere producing this play when I'm 30, I would love to play Sally.
November 16, 2007
Just another reason I adore Lanford Wilson
July 13, 2010
It was cute and entertaining... It was one of those plays that felt like the actors could make or break it in performance.
November 5, 2015
Read in college acting class. Great play with some good monologues for girls.
October 7, 2013
Confession Time! If I didn't have to read this for school, I might have rated it higher.
June 28, 2021
The Talley trilogy is probably one of my favorite theatrical trilogies- this being my favorite in the series. Ironically this is the ‘straightest’ play, the others closely overlapping Wilson’s queer experiences. I say, ‘ironically’ because I’m usually more drawn to queer subject matter, but this play transcends in its verbosity and emotionality.
The play follows an evening with two people reconnecting after a long period of separation. It is touching, smart, silly, and all together delightful in its explosion of the full-spectrum of emotions.
On a technical note, I also found the play extremely measured in its pacing and beats. “It is a waltz” after all.
Can’t give it the 5 because it is still very hokey, and there isn’t exactly a ‘timeless’ aspect to it. I do, however, pick it up occasionally when I’m in need of a pick-me-up. A one-act romcom perfect if you’re in the mood to read, rather than watch one.
The play follows an evening with two people reconnecting after a long period of separation. It is touching, smart, silly, and all together delightful in its explosion of the full-spectrum of emotions.
On a technical note, I also found the play extremely measured in its pacing and beats. “It is a waltz” after all.
Can’t give it the 5 because it is still very hokey, and there isn’t exactly a ‘timeless’ aspect to it. I do, however, pick it up occasionally when I’m in need of a pick-me-up. A one-act romcom perfect if you’re in the mood to read, rather than watch one.
February 3, 2021
I read this play for my Production Design class. I will be completely frank and say that I didn't like it. It was so. boring. There were a total of two (2) characters. How do you maintain a story with only two characters talking back and forth? You don't. They did have a lot of drama with each other so that propelled the story I guess. Also, there was one plot twist, but honestly, the twist made things worse. It made Sally's earlier dialogue make no sense. This play did not vibe with me.
February 25, 2025
“Once in your life risk something. At least you will know that you did what you could. What do you think she is going to do, bite you?” - Matt
4/10
First half was interesting, middle part seemed kind of boring and pointless. But the ending did a good job of wrapping it all together.
Cover stood out to me the most. Which is why I picked it out. It reminded me of the movie Celebrity, with Kenneth Branagh and Judy Davis.
4/10
First half was interesting, middle part seemed kind of boring and pointless. But the ending did a good job of wrapping it all together.
Cover stood out to me the most. Which is why I picked it out. It reminded me of the movie Celebrity, with Kenneth Branagh and Judy Davis.
April 14, 2021
I like the plays of Lanford Wilson. Talley's Folly won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize. However, I have to admit this play did not work for me. The characters were dead on arrival and the dialogue did not sound like spoken words. I would have to see this performed in order to get any sense of characterization from Sally and Matt.
February 26, 2026
It was a fun but draining read, it seems like a production that has to be anchored by the actors lights and design, I was constantly in actor mode trying to understand Matt/sally and make them interesting to read. It’s a decent one act that id love to direct or perform
June 11, 2019
This won a Pulitzer Prize?
It redefines the response: MEH.
It redefines the response: MEH.
March 30, 2022
Scene for my acting class! Super cute play and I enjoyed it
December 31, 2022
I’m performing in this show in April of 2023! Love this sweet love story.
November 11, 2025
Took a minute to get into this one, but enjoyed it.
September 4, 2019
This is a very bad play.
September 28, 2023
Glad I read this one with the other two Talley plays.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews