["Up to Thursday"] centered on (1) a young man lying in bed under an American flag and (2) four handsome, very young people sitting on straight-back chairs. The examination of drama not being altogether a police case, it is not necessary to pin down motive.

The author draws brightness from the banalities of conversation. Some of his devices are theater of the absurd à la Abbott and Costello, but he cuts deeper. He delineates the initial shyness of a relationship and the unreserved candor of an intimacy. In so doing, he uses vulgarities to establish his franchise as a freeborn playwright, but no matter, he demonstrates stagecraft.

Richard F. Shepard, "'Up to Thursday'," in The New York Times (© 1965 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), February 11, 1965 (and reprinted in The New York Times Theatre Reviews, The New York Times Company, 1971).