Art Has An Obligation To Offend

I’m Infinitely More Involved In The Reality Of The Characters And Their Situation Than I Am In Everyday Life.

In The Thirties A Whole School Of Criticism Bogged Down Intellectually In Those Agitprop, Social-realistic Days. A Play Had To Be Progressive. A Number Of Plays By Playwrights Who Were Thought Very Highly Of Then - They Were Very Bad Playwrights - Were Highly Praised Because Their Themes Were Intellectually And Politically Proper. This Intellectual Morass Is Very Dangerous, It Seems To Me. A Form Of Censorship.

The Notion That Women Are Less Aesthetically Profound And Innovative Than Men--just Not Very Important, If You Know What I Mean--doubtless Spreads Back To Our Beginnings As Upright Animals: The Males Hunted And Killed For The Family While The Females Stayed Home In The Cave And Tended The Strange Little Creatures They Were Giving Birth To.

True, I Don't Begin With An Idea For A Play - A Thesis, In Other Words, To Construct The Play Around. But I Know A Good Deal About The Nature Of The Characters. I Know A Great Deal About Their Environment. And I More Or Less Know What Is Going To Happen In The Play.

Naturally, No Writer Who's Any Good At All Would Sit Down And Put A Sheet Of Paper In A Typewriter And Start Typing A Play Unless He Knew What He Was Writing About.