When A Critic Sets Himself Up As

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 Responsibility Of The Writer Is To Be A Sort Of Demonic Social Critic -- To Present The World And People In It As He Sees It And Say, "do You Like It? If You Don't Like It, Change 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.

I Imagine As An Axiom You Could Say That The Better The Play, The Less "creativity" The Director Need Exert.

What I Mean By An Educated Taste Is Someone Who Has The Same Tastes That I Have.