Once upon a time in the early sixties,Fourteenth Street in Manhattan was the Maginot Line between two warring worlds: the hidebound commercial Broadway theatre uptown and the fresh theatrical culture growing in the petri dishes of Village cafés and storefronts. So grand was the divide that, until approximately 1968, or the Times had no regular coverage of the louche (disreputable) and lively downtown goings on. Of the scores of playwrights who caught the fresh Off Broadway wave,only a few had the craft and the cunning to travel beyond it. John Guare was one of them. The era was increasingly belligerent, but Guare’s edgy, and imaginative storytelling never lost sight of the notion of entertainment. “I’m not so much interested in how people survive as in how they avoid humiliation,” Guare wrote. I think avoiding humiliation is the core of tragedy and comedy and probably of our lives.” Onstage and off, Guare’s method of avoidance was a charm offensive that kept the world both at attention and at arm’s length, or signalling his aim to please and to conquer.
Source: newyorker.com