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It was with this play that I began to learn not to try to pin a play’s meaning down to a didactic theme. We used to do that in the Group; it was the essence of our work as directors. We were “teaching” the audience with each play. Clifford Odets felt it necessary in his third acts to grab the audie…

I doubt that Budd was affected as personally as I was by the parallel of Tony Mike’s story. His reaction to the loss of certain friends was not as bitter as my own; he had not experienced their blackballing as frequently and intensely as I had in the neighborhood known as Broadway. I believe Budd r…

The artist has his solution; Tennessee exemplified it. It was his way of self-restoration. In a letter I received from Williams, there was this: “For the past five years I have been haunted by a fear which has made it necessary for me to work like somebody running out of a house on fire.” Once when…

I PASSED from a film that dealt with the broadest possible scene, a panorama of human suffering, to a play that penetrated into the most intimate area of all, the soul of an artist. Camino Real is as private as a nightmare. No playwright except Eugene O’Neill in his last plays was as personal as Te…

Months later, when I came back from Bavaria, I’d undergone an essential change. I was no longer defensive but was determined to reclaim my self-esteem and fear no cabal of old friends turned to enemies. I landed in New York, and the first person I sought was Budd. Despite the fact that Molly had se…