Pirandello's masterful dramatic technique stands in sharp contrast to the wariness of his thought and the relativism of the human truths he presents. Scepticism usually begets a certain amount of detachment toward human weaknesses. By and by weariness, disillusion, and contempt build a wall between the thinker and life. But human nature follows mysterious ways and the most cynical of men may feel an overwhelming desire to confide in other men and to pour out his disillusions, his defeats, and his philosophical conclusions.

Comedy and its opposite lie in the same disposition of feeling, and they are inside the process which results from it. In its abnormality, this disposition is bitterly comical, the condition of a man who is always out of tune; of a man who is at the same time violin and bass; of a man for whom no thought can come to mind unless suddenly another one, its opposite and contrary, intervenes; of a man for whom any one reason for saying yes is at once joined by two or three others compelling him to say no, so that yes and no keep him suspended and perplexed for all his life; of a man who cannot let himself go in a feeling without suddenly realizing something inside which disturbs him, disarranges him, makes him angry….

A young man loves a woman and is not loved in return. What is more, he has a rival. In a costumed cavalcade, the rival causes the young man's horse to slip, and the young man falls, faints, and, when he comes to, is the victim of the delusion that he is the person whose costume he is wearing: the German Emperor Henry IV. His sister converts a villa into a replica of this Emperor's palace so that the young man can live on as Henry IV undisturbed. After twelve years, however, the delusion wears off. Our man, no longer so young, decides not to let anyone know it and to stay on as Emperor, though sane.

After eight more years, his sister dies. But she had visited him shortly before her death and gained the impression that he might now be curable. She tells her nephew this, and soon after her death he brings a psychiatrist to the villa to see what can be done.

… The drama of modern art and its public, Everyman after Hiroshima faced with the debris of Dubuffet, the chromatic tumors of Wols, the burlap canvasses, Burri's industrial red-lead on shards of sheet metal, the orchestral blasts of Nono, the “what cannot be said is better left unsaid” of Wittgenstein's anti-philosophy; a drama already dated, if it is true that the levelling-off of taste, the techniques of psycho-control, the establishment of the marketplace in the cultural sphere all threaten to deprive Everyman (and his artist) of any right to tragedy. In this respect Each In His Own Way can be presented, today, not at all as a manifesto of Pirandellism, but rather as nothing less than a lyrical consummation without a trace of discursive reasoning, a poetics that is poetry. For someone working in the theatre it has the same value as a page by Mallarmé on poetry would have for a poet.

An American visitor to London is dazzled by theatrical illuminations that shine even more brightly by contrast with our own darkling stage. America now has an ever-growing number of permanent companies, and some of them can boast of considerable achievements. But it will be a long time, I fear, before we can begin to match the adventurousness of the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych, the fine, fearless integrity of the English Stage Society at the Royal Court, or the expertise of the National Theatre at the Old Vic. There is something in the American character that has thus far proved resistant to collective artistic enterprise—something at the same time invigorating (an anarchic independence of will) and degenerate (a selfish opportunism)—with the result that our serious theatre has been continually engaged in an exhausting struggle with the frailties that are always threatening to destroy it, whether reflected in the actor's glory-lust, the producer's venality, the designer's self-indulgence, the director's careerism, or the spectator's fatigue and apathy.

The ambiance of The Mayor of Zalainea (El alcalde de Zalainea) is free-flowing and quick-changing. Though many scenes take place in Crespo's house, the impression is that the out-of-doors predominates, that things are literally and figuratively out in the open. From the soldier Rebolledo's raucous expostulations against marching orders in the opening scene, to the crowds of farmers, soldiers, and officials listening to the banter of Don Lope and Crespo, Chispa and Rebolledo in the closing scenes, the play abounds with jaunty speech, the excited intermingling of classes, and rapid scene shifts which follow the intrigue and the conflicts of interests. Characters tend to pair off and move now toward and now away from other pairs as they reflect or mark off changes of situation: Rebolledo and La Chispa, his sweetheart; the captain Don Álvaro and his sergeant; the impoverished hidalgo Don Mendo and Nuño his servant; Pedro Crespo the mayor and Don Lope the commander; Crespo and his son Juan; Crespo and his daughter Isabel; and finally, Isabel and her cousin Inés.

Winnie is buried up to her waist. Happy Days opens with the terrifying sound of a bell. A moment later the bell rings once again. Winnie wakes up, raises her head, opens her eyes. What does this bell mean? Winnie talks about it often, and throughout the entire first act she waits for it to ring. The bell rings when it is time to get up and when it is time to go to sleep. When I was in the hospital, there was no bell; the nurses woke us up and turned out the lights at night. But there was a bell when I stayed in a nursing home. The bell had a horrifying sound and woke us up every morning. The bell rang also at night, and when it had rung, we were not allowed to have the light on.

One of the most remarkable aspects of Leben Eduards des Zweiten is that it is an almost womanless play. Complementary to this observation is that the various antagonists in Marlowe's play become protagonists in Brecht's version. Furthermore, these protagonists—Edward, Gaveston, Mortimer, and Edward's son—are all “youths” and have as their opponents, obviously, father figures. That some of these protagonists oppose themselves does not contradict this. In starting with the Queen, I do not mean that she is the chief character. Quite to the contrary, we find her to be an absence, a negativity which allows our protagonists to stand in sharper profile.

The play consists of twelve captioned episodes which constitute a three-part structure: I. A-C; II. D, alone; and III. E-L. In the first episode (A), we find Gaveston back from exile, invited by the present King Edward, who has dared to recall his bosom friend against his now dead father's proscription and the peers’ wills.

People in Minneapolis were always asking me, “What does a Resident Playwright do?” And although I could usually come up with some high-sounding, evasive answer, I never found one that satisfied me. The Guthrie Theatre did not find an answer either, and my three years there were doubtless as frustrating to them as they were unproductive for me. Typically, our failure happened more from a lack of communication than from any real wish to do harm to one another, the result, perhaps, of a set of fortuitous circumstances that neither of us was prepared to accept.

I came to the Minnesota Theatre Company in the fall of 1962, while a student at the university, before the Guthrie was even a building. In the long winter months, we used to go down behind the Walker Art Center and look at that black skeleton rising out of the snow.

When questioned about the audience at Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theatre, a man who ought to know said, “Well, we're working out a deal with New York. They're going to send us 300,000 Jews and Italians and we're going to send them 300,000 Swedes and Norwegians.” The Guthrie started because Sir Tony wanted a regional theatre and Minneapolis came up with the best bid. Like starting an industry or relocating a plant. Three years have passed since the missionaries arrived. Sir Tony is leaving and his associate artistic director, Douglas Campbell, is replacing him. The theatre has developed into one of the two best in the nation (Washington's Arena Stage is the other). But something is missing—dialogue with the audience.

Sir Tony directed two plays last season, The Cherry Orchard and Richard III. The first was a museum piece of exquisite taste, the second a bold and bald exercise in condescension.