American Critics Are Like American Universities. They

What Happens In A Play Is Determined To A Certain Extent By What I Thought Might Be Interesting To Have Happen Before I Invented The Characters, Before They Started Taking Over What Happened, Because They Are Three-dimensional Individuals, And I Cannot Tell Them What To Do. Once I Give Them Their Identity And Their Nature, They Start Writing The Play.

George, Who Is Out Somewhere There In The Dark, Who Is Good To Me - Whom I Revile, Who Can Keep Learning The Games We Play As Quickly As I Can Change Them. Who Can Make Me Happy And I Do Not Wish To Be Happy. And Yes, I Do Wish To Be Happy. George And Martha: Sad, Sad, Sad. Whom I Will Not Forgive For Having Come To Rest; For Having Seen Me And Having Said: “yes, This Will Do”. Who Has Made The Hideous, The Hurting, The Insulting Mistake Of Loving… Me, And Must Be Punished For It. George And Martha… Sad, Sad, Sad.

I Think It's For The Critics To Decide Whether Or Not Their Loathing Of The Play Is Based On Something Other Than The Play's Merits Or Demerits. They Must Search Their Own Souls, Or Whatever.

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.

I Suppose, Writing A Play Is Finding Out What The Play Is.