That's The Happiest Moment. When

About Four Years Ago I Made A List, For My Own Amusement, Of The Playwrights, The Contemporary Playwrights, By Whom Critics Said I'd Been Influenced. I Listed Twenty-five. It Included Five Playwrights Whose Work I Didn't Know, So I Read These Five Playwrights And Indeed Now I Suppose I Can Say I Have Been Influenced By Them. The Problem Is That The People Who Write These Articles Find The Inevitable Similarities Of People Writing In The Same Generation, In The Same Century, And On The Same Planet, And They Put Them Together In A Group.

Maybe It's A Little More Pertinent Now Since The Whole Concept Of Evolution Is Being Questioned By The Know-nothing Republican Right. Yes, Maybe The Play's A Little More Pertinent Now.

I Do Think, Or Rather I Sense That There Is A Relationship - At Least In My Own Work - Between A Dramatic Structure, The Form And Sound And Shape Of A Play, And The Equivalent Structure In Music. Both Deal With Sound, Of Course, And Also With Idea, Theme.

Every Monster Was A Man First.

Influence Is A Matter Of Selection - Both Acceptance And Rejection.