SOURCE: "Fugue for Three Roommates," in The New Yorker, Vol. LI, No. 5, March 24, 1975, pp. 61-3.

Below, Oliver offers a positive assessment of The Taking of Miss Janie, maintaining that "Mr. Bullins has rarely been wittier or, for that matter, more understanding and vigorous. "

The Taking of Miss Janie, a good new play by Ed Bullins, at the Henry Street Settlement's New Federal Theatre (on Grand Street), can be most briefly described as a fugue, whose themes are the feelings and experiences of a number of young people during the nineteen-sixties. The action, which takes place in California, starts out at, and keeps returning to, a party that three black roommates, all of them college students, give for a number of their white and black friends. The principal story concerns black Monty, one of the roommates, who has met white Janie in a "creative-writing class" and invites her to...