The dramatist's problem of securing an adequate response was brought into focus for me by seeing recently, on successive evenings, performances of Tennessee Williams's Period of Adjustment and Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey. Both plays are skillfully written in the vernacular of present-day concerns; both are admirably produced and performed. Mr. Williams calls his work a "serious comedy"; Miss Delaney offers no label, but hers could fairly be called a witty tragedy. It comes to much the same thing; but Period of Adjustment dulls the spirit, and A Taste of Honey puts new shine on the human race. (p. 102)

Jo Smith, the girl [in A Taste of Honey], is a vulnerable little bitch with a sharp tongue and a ready heart, both engendered by loneliness. Helen, her mother, is an overblown peony, with a mind as errant as a kite let loose and appetites as sharp as...