I rather liked this play. It was an original take on the metaphysics of reality that expanded, and then contracted, until it fit within the timeline of the play's duration. The characters were sharp, but it was the action that drove the events forward in this play. Overall, a good read.

4 stars. ( )

Wonderful one woman show that explores the mind of a woman experiencing a stroke. It's like she's landed in another world. Exploration is key here; the woman sees her plight as a very strange adventure; her world is split open and she has landed on strange shores. You need a great actor to play it; I saw Constance Cummings perform it at The New York Shakespeare Festival. ( )

A look at the world of a woman who has just suffered a stroke. This play is unusual in that it doesn't focus on the changes in the lives of those around her, but instead attempts to look at the world through her eyes, with the strange images and sounds that she experiences. A bit difficult to read because of the formatting that helps inform the inspiring director the best way to put the play on stage, but a rewarding experience nevertheless. ( )

explores the tormented mind of a former aviatrix who has suffered a stroke.
Martin Kohn: In the well-written preface, Arthur Kopit describes how he came to write Wings, a play about stroke and language disorder. And he explains there how his fictional account of strokes and their aftermath, "is a work of speculation informed by fact." One fact important to Kopit was that his father suffered a major stroke seven months before Kopit was commissioned by National Public Radio to write an original radio play.

Wings, (which has been sucessfully staged as well) however, is not based on Kopit's father, but on the life of a character, Emily Stilson, who is an amalgam of people, both stroke victims and their stroke-recovered caregivers, from the rehab center caring for Kopit's father. The title of the play refers to an early career of Emily Stilson--she was an airplane wingwalker. Kopit deftly employs the sounds of an airplane in the scenes in which Emily is experiencing a stroke. In fact, the sounds and sights inside and outside of Emily as well as her private dialogue are combined masterfully by Kopit to bring about a high degree of verisimilitude to the chaos produced by stroke. (Lit, Art & Med Database)