Gurney has a distinct beginning and end, but the rest of the play seems like filler. In order to have some plot other than what the four characters will do about the fourth wall, Gurney creates the subplot of a possible affair between Roger and Julia. But Peggy is not worried enough about Roger and Julia to intervene when they are locked in the bedroom together. Although Gurney does create some suspense with the possibility of the affair, he thwarts it and renders it meaningless.

By making the affair plot unimportant, Gurney mocks tv shows and movies which do revolve around such typical plots. In fact, Gurney takes several stabs at sitcoms.

Another target of Gurney's comic attack is George Bush. Peggy gives a speech that Clinton campaign advisors would have loved. But like the Cole Porter songs, the speech would be good in another context, but it does not jibe well with the rest of the play.

In his talk with Harvard students sponsored by Harvard's Office for the Arts, Gurney said he was trying to make a political statement with The Fourth Wall.

When asked what he was trying to do with Peggy's speech, Gurney replied that it was a "slash across the canvas." But the slash does not come across as a bold political statement; rather, it jars the feeling of the play.

Although Gurney does not quite achieve his goal of writing a forceful political play, he does successfully challenge the constraints of the medium of the play.

In the program, Gurney writes, "I myself have been writing plays of one kind or another for almost forty years, and more and more I find myself prowling around this cell I have put myself in, testing its possibilities, and at least pretending to cherish its restrictions."

The Fourth Wall is more about drama than it is about anything else. Gurney fills the play with allusions to playwrights ranging from Aristophanes and Sophocles to Shakespeare, Beckett, and Pirandello. The script would make a good final for a drama survey course if the professor asked the students to identify and discuss all the allusions.

The Fourth Wall may not be a masterpiece but it does further the postmodern tradition, signifying a personal breakthrough for A.R. Gurney.