Who We Become: One Act Plays By Lanford Wilson
Directed by Mark Cirnigliaro
59 E 59 Theatres | 59 East 59th Street, NYC
July 17 - July 19
Lanford Wilson, that intrepid chronicler of the American soul and poetic architect of the Off-Off-Broadway movement, remains a towering yet curiously underappreciated figure in the modern theatrical canon—a dramatist whose singular voice resonated through the scrappy experimentalism of early works like The Madness of Lady Bright, and the kaleidoscopic Balm in Gilead, and later found Pulitzer Prize-winning recognition with the tender, structurally audacious Talley’s Folly. A co-founder of the seminal Circle Repertory Company, Wilson honed a language both lyrical and lacerating, forging compassionate yet unflinching portraits of longing, alienation, and the aching, fractured landscapes of American life.
Who We Become, in presenting a triptych of Wilson’s lesser-known one-acts, offers a rare and invigorating immersion into the quieter corners of his oeuvre—an invitation not merely to revisit a master’s voice, but to re-encounter it with fresh ears attuned to its emotional intricacy, formal daring, and ever-relevant human truths. In director Mark Cirnigliaro’s gentle hands, Breakfast at the Track and A Poster of the Cosmos are played with simplicity and subtleties that reveal love in its many guises…sometimes based on deeply moving yearning, and then unsettlingly threadbare.
In the gently whimsical confection that is Breakfast at the Track, we find ourselves not in the throes of grand tragedy or soul-rattling conflict, but rather eavesdropping on the mundane squabbles of a married couple vacationing at a bed-and-breakfast. Their central dilemma—a dispute over the ungodly hour of 6:30 a.m.—is hardly the stuff of Shakespearean torment. This morning-versus-night battle is positively gossamer. And yet, therein lies the charm, and also the disquieting revelation of a two-year marriage on shaky ground.
Geoff Stoner, as the irrepressibly chipper early riser, and Margaret Curry, as his blithe owl-eyed, blanket-clutching counterpart, elevate this miniature domestic standoff into something almost balletic in its precision and comic ingenuity. The script may skate along the surface, but the performers dive deep into the art of timing, nuance, and relational truth. Stoner radiates a bright-eyed earnestness that would make a rooster blush, while Curry’s exasperated grumbles and artfully timed eyerolls when not completely covered by a sleep mask are the stuff of comedic gold.
What emerges is a disarmingly honest and relentlessly funny portrait of matrimonial compromise—less a dramatic meal than a perfectly crafted amuse-bouche…until it reveals something deeper, and somewhat sadder…The husband’s out of the blue “I don’t know about you but I don’t consider this much of a marriage” has us instantly heartbroken. It is a tribute to Cirnigliaro's keen observational instincts and the actors’ delightfully unselfconscious chemistry that we remain so thoroughly entertained by so minor a tiff. In their hands, the everyday becomes quietly revelatory, and the act of waking up becomes, quite simply, a joy to watch.
Set within the confined and unforgiving walls of a Manhattan police station interrogation room, A Poster of the Cosmos unfolds as a taut, deeply affecting monologue—one that challenges its audience not through spectacle but through the unrelenting intimacy of a man’s voice, cornered and cracking under the weight of grief, guilt, and society’s silent prejudices. At the centre of this compact yet emotionally charged one-hander is Tom, a 36-year-old working-class baker whose life has been upended by tragedy—and whose very ordinariness is treated as suspicious by the unseen detectives interrogating him for murder.
Geoff Stoner inhabits the character of Tom with a raw and unvarnished realism that speaks volumes before a word is spoken. In a particularly potent directorial choice, Cirnigliaro deftly signals the play’s preoccupation with judgment, with sides drawn too hastily, and with the dangerous distance between presumption and truth. From the outset, Cosmos is not simply a whodunnit; it is a scathing, slow-burning meditation on the chasm between appearance and understanding.
Tom’s monologue is shaped entirely by his responses to the disembodied voices of the police, a narrative structure that cleverly exposes the audience to the contours of his personality, his past, and his pain through his own defensive, bewildered, and sometimes bitter retorts. One such repeated line from his interrogators—“you don’t look like the kinda guy’d do somethin’ like dat”—is met with Tom’s blistering, matter-of-fact rejoinder: “You spend your day in the armpit of the city and you know nothing about people.” That single line encapsulates the underlying theme of the piece: a searing critique of those who claim worldly wisdom while remaining blind to the truths beneath the surface.
Lanford Wilson’s writing—naturalistic, sharply tuned, and grounded in emotional authenticity—gives Stoner the scaffolding to create a character who never feels performed. Tom’s speech unfolds as though we are hearing thoughts forming in real time. His pauses, hesitations, and half-formed utterances are not mannerisms but manifestations of a mind navigating trauma and memory. As the monologue progresses, we begin to piece together fragments of Tom’s life: a youthful marriage, a child left in the past, a serendipitous meeting at dawn with Johnny, an exuberant delivery man who offered him not just a place to stay but, unexpectedly, love.
The emotional apex of the play lies in its unflinching account of Johnny’s illness—he is diagnosed with AIDS—and the final, agonizing months the couple share together. Tom, having tested negative, holds Johnny as he dies. The heartbreak of surviving, of being left behind, of grappling with survivor’s guilt, all crescendo into a desperate, possibly incriminating act—one that brings us to the interrogation room where we now find him.
Stoner’s performance is unshowy but devastating, his portrayal resisting sentimentality in favor of something more grounded, more piercing. His Tom is not a martyr or a hero but a man—plain, troubled, grieving—trying to explain the unexplainable to a world that has already judged him. This, ultimately, is the tragedy Cosmos lays bare: the automatic, unconscious cruelties of those who assume they know the hearts of others.
In a wry, almost throwaway moment, we learn the play’s title refers not to the celestial or the metaphysical, but to a humble soccer team—a detail that gently underscores the ordinariness of its protagonist, and the tragic irony that such a simple life can be so badly misunderstood.
Originally staged in 1988, A Poster of the Cosmos remains achingly relevant. Its themes—love in the margins, grief misread as guilt, the tyranny of first impressions—have lost none of their urgency. In this spare, direct revival, Cirnigliaro reminds us that even the smallest stories, if told truthfully, can resonate with a force very much universal.
Breakfast At The Track and A Poster of the Cosmos performed in repertory with The Moonshot Tape in alternating programs.
Who We Become: One Act Plays By Lanford Wilson played its last performance on July 19.
Presented as part of East to Edinburgh at 59 E 59 Theatres
Review by Tony Marinelli.
Published by Theatre Beyond Broadway on July 23, 2025. All rights reserved.