That Tennessee Williams is presently in crisis probably goes without saying. There are reasons, however, why it should be said yet again; not the least of which is the need to name the crisis, place it, forget about it, and move on to more helpful abstractions. To name it, at least as it comes to us from the theatre page of the New York Times or the gossip columns of the New York Journal-American, all we have to ponder are those twin obsessions, money and sex.

The popular image of Williams is that of the Successful Playwright, man about many towns, suavely wearing a pencil moustache that seems to have been bought as an elegant accessory to his debonair tropical suit.