After the opening of his two new plays, Arthur Kopit was savaged by the press, a development which should surprise nobody familiar with the fickleness of American cultural fashions. Kopit was praised much too quickly on the basis of much too little, and it was inevitable that an angry reaction would set in, not only among those who had originally disliked his first play, but among those who suddenly realized they had overestimated it. On the other hand, Kopit himself is partly responsible for the condescending tone employed by his reviewers. Since he often writes like a gifted spoiled child, he practically invites a spanking. Then, too, Kopit's coy playfulness palls very swiftly. One has the feeling sometimes that he would rather compose titles than plays, and those long, winding tropes are too much like attention-getting mechanisms, full of simpers and winks….

As one of those who found...