George, Who Is Out Somewhere There In

Few Sensible Authors Are Happy Discussing The Creative Process--it Is, After All, Black Magic.

I'm Not Responsible For The Commercialization. The People Who Produce The Plays Are Responsible For It.

I Stopped Acting When I Was About Nineteen, Twenty, When I Got Thrown Out Of College. I Did Act For About Ten Years. I Don't Know. I Suspect I'm Still A Reasonably Good Actor, But I Don't Really Know That I Want To Get On The Stage Again ... And Having To Say All Those Boring Words By Me Over And Over Again ... I Don't Know If I Want To Do That. Also, I Like A Certain Amount Of Freedom Of Movement, And If You're Acting, You're Stuck In One Place For A Long Time. Having Said That, I Will Probably Be Onstage Next Fall.

I Think I Sit Down To The Typewriter When It's Time To Sit Down To The Typewriter. That Isn't To Suggest That When I Do Finally Sit Down At The Typewriter, And Write Out My Plays With A Speed That Seems To Horrify All My Detractors And Half Of My Well-wishers, That There's No Work Involved. It Is Hard Work, And One Is Doing All The Work Oneself.

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.