To A Certain Extent I

If You Examine The History Of Any Playwright Of The Past Twenty - Five Or Thirty Years - I'm Not Talking About The Comedy Boys, I'm Talking About The More Serious Writers - It Seems Inevitable That Almost Every One Has Been Encouraged Until The Critics Feel That They Have Built Them Up Beyond The Point Where They Can Control Them; Then It's Time To Knock Them Down Again.

The Avant-garde Theater Is Fun; It Is Free-wheeling, Bold, Iconoclastic, And Often Wildly, Wildly Funny. If You Will Approach It With Childlike Innocence -- Putting Your Standard Responses Aside, For They Do Not Apply -- If You Will Approach It On Its Own Terms, I Think You Will Be In For A Liberating Surprise. I Think You May No Longer Be Content With Plays That You Can't Remember Halfway Down The Block.

There May Be Lots Of Questions That Anybody - An Actor Or A Director Or Anybody - Can Ask About A Character In A Play Of Mine That Are Not Answered In The Play, But If It's A Question That I Don't Think Is Relevant, I Don't Bother About It. There's No Reason To Ask It.

Unless You Are Terribly, Terribly Careful, You Run The Danger-- Without Even Knowing It Is Happening To You-- Of Slipping Into The Fatal Error Of Reflecting The Public Taste Instead Of Creating It. Your Responsibility Is To The Public Consciousness, Not To The Public View Of Itself.

The Characters' Lives Have Gone On Before The Moment You Chose To Have The Action Of The Play Begin. And Their Lives Are Going To Go On After You Have Lowered The Final Curtain On The Play, Unless You've Killed Them Off.