A classic of family dysfunction

The Talley clan are on stage again, this time at the Williamstown Theater Festival in a robust yet gentle revival of “The Fifth of July,� Lanford Wilson’s comic drama about a dysfunctional Missouri family.

Family and friends have gathered at the lakeside Talley home — a marvel of stagecraft created by set designer David Gallo and bathed in soft, buttery sunlight by lighting designer David Weiner — to help Aunt Sally Friedman (a wonderful Elizabeth Franz) properly empty the candy box filled with Uncle Matt’s ashes that she has kept on her mantle for years.

The play, which can seem as melodramatic as a TV sitcom, is saved by Wilson’s limitless humanity and empathy for his characters, the usual self-centered and dramatizing misfits for which Wilson is known: Kenneth Talley Jr. (Shane McRae), who lost his legs in Vietnam, is angry and afraid to face students in the local high school, where he has been offered a job; Jed (Noah Bean), Ken’s horticulturalist boyfriend, has a passionate connection to Ken and the Talley gardens, both at risk if the place is sold in a secret plan of Ken’s.

Then there is Ken’s sister June (Kellie Overbey), still fighting ’60s culture wars, and her precocious 13-going-on 35-year-old daughter Shirley (Kally Duling), who changes costumes and personae at will.

Gwen and John Landis (Jennifer Mudge and David Wilson Barnes) are a copper heiress who hurls outrageous quips and wants to be a rock star and her sleazy husband, whose strategically timed trip to Europe to avoid the draft set up the tension between them and Ken. Finally Danny Deferrari plays Weston Hurley, Gwen’s amusing, drug-addled guitarist groupie.

In typical Wilson construction, each character delivers a monologue of defining weight and rueful conscience. The gentle, embracing flow — punctuated often by humor and surprise — is broken only near the end by John’s angry outburst and Ken’s painful physical reaction.

The fine Williamstown production originated in Sag Harbor, N.Y., at the Bay Street Theater, where Director Terry Kinney worked with Wilson, who lives there, and the playwright’s emphasis on ensemble informs the show. While “Fifth� is not a great play — Wilson’s “Talley’s Folly,� which won a Pulitzer Prize, is tighter and funnier — it is a very good one that nudges us to recognize the accommodations we make to friends and family over the years. Time, Wilson seems to say, is the great gentler.

“The Fifth of July� runs through Aug. 22 at the Williamstown Theater Festival, Williamstown, Mass. For tickets, call (413) 597-3400.