SOURCE: Abel, Lionel. “Not Everyone Is in the Fix.” Partisan Review 27, no. 1 (winter 1960): 131–36.

In the following essay on The Connection, Abel states that the play challenges the audience to become aware of and to evaluate their deeds and desires.

You are not where you wanted to be, nor will you get what you expected. But do you want to go somewhere else? Where? Not easy to say, but it's not easy to stay where you are, either. You will stay too, unless you are like the reviewers for the dailies, who damned this play almost to a man. Why will you stay? Not in any great hope of pleasure, but as you stay in a dentist's office, motivated by an aching tooth. If you had come to be relieved of your boredom, then you will not be satisfied. You will not be relieved. You will be even more...