280
PARTISAN REVIEW
they (critics) don't understand it, but they will one day.
Int.:
What does it have that your other plays do not? What's so great
about it?
Williams:
It's a very personal play. It's my own human outcry. The
style is different too.
Int.:
Was it the change in your writing style that caused the deep
depression?
Williams:
This depression had to do with a sudden reversal in my
writing, yes, and also perhaps more particularly with the death of the
person I had lived with for fourteen years, Frank Merlo. Almost
immediately after his death, the depression came on. There's a brief
period of shock in which you feel almost nothing.
Int.:
Frank Merlo probably had more influence on your life than any
other person-outside of your family?
Willia~s~
Frank had a great influence on my life as an artist. After his
death there was a drastic change in my style of writing.
Int.:
What was Frank like?
Williams:
Frank was a very beautiful person. When he
d~ed
of lung
cancer, he was very young. He was operated on nine months before
he died. When he had x-rays they discovered this cancer and operated
on it at Memorial Hospital, but they couldn't remove it because it
was too close to his heart. They call ed me and said that he had six
months to live. Nobody told him. How cou ld you tell him? (He
pauses. There is great sadne s in his voice as he continues as if
mesmerized by the story itselL) He didn't know until he could hardly
breathe and began bringing up blood. By that time he must have
known. He must have known that I knew. But he never said
anything. I visited him every day. That's what made me so mad
about the
A tlantic
piece because they said that I was so terrified of
death that I wouldn't visit my best friend when he was dying. I was
with him every day. I mean it wasn't easy. He was very brave,
though. It didn't frighten me as much as it numbed me. The shock–
then I realized all of a sudden that I was lost. I didn't know how to
handle my life then.
Int.:
Did he in any way anticipate the shock that was going to come to
you?
Williams:
Probably. In retrospect, I think that Frank should have been
told, for I think that people can make an adjustment, not a happy
adjustment, but they can make some kind of psychological adjust–
ment. So that when the terminal, the really terminal tate comes, it's
not so horrible. You usually have several good months, you know,
