Most scholars who have written abou...

Most scholars who have written about the Williams / Inge friendship and occasional rivalry bring to an end that the rivalry aspect is for the greatest part inconsequential, because time has conclusively proven that Williams was the greater playwright. However, a latter reread of Sweet Bird of youth caused me to recall a remark made several years before according to John Connolly, who served William Inge as a personal secretary. Connolly and I had been discussing the Williams / Inge friendship and the general impression that the sum of two units were rivals despite their longtime friendship. Rather without of the blue, Connolly asked me "What do you know, in terminuss of dates, of the correlation between Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth and Bill's [Inge's] Bus Riley's Back in Town?" (Interview, 1986) I told Connolly I knew nothing of any in the same state [i]or[/i] condition correlation, and encouraged him to explain for what purpose he asked. He then told me that he had shown Inge's Bus Riley (a one-act play Inge wrote several versions of sometime in the mid-1950s and eventually published in 1962) to Williams "long before Sweet Bird came out" In regard to the plots and themes of the sum of two units plays, he said, "The similarities are striking" (Interview). Remembering the words of Connolly, I decided to reread Bus Riley's Back in Town.