Profession: playwright

Racine, with Molière and Corneille, was one of the three great playwrights of 17th C France; both Racine and Corneille are known for their tragedies, Racine’s elegant language and psychological insight eventually eclipsing Corneille’s more elaborate approach. Racine met La Fontaine as a young man, and not long after, Boileau (a great supporter and then close friend) and Molière. He and Molière had a troubled relationship, the older man producing Racine’s first play to be performed publicly; its success led Racine to quickly take it to a rival company, while also seducing Molière’s leading actress – Molière never spoke to him again.

Ionesco’s metaphysical farces made him a leading protagonist of the Theatre of the Absurd. He met Cioran and Eliade at university in Bucharest, both becoming lifelong friends. He greatly admired Breton, who with Buñuel, Queneau and Adamov was an encouragingly supportive friend (although Adamov, once very close, found it hard to take Ionesco’s literary success). Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute and he performed a Virginia Woolf play in New York. He knew and corresponded with Beckett, threw his arms around Trocchi, met with the ‘Pataphysicians on Vian’s roof, visited the aged Brancusi, and got his childhood inspiration Tzara speaking Romanian again.

Miller was one of the U.S’s great playwrights. He never met O’Neill (both wanted to), but corresponded. Kazan had been a close friend and collaborator — Miller never fully forgave him for testifying against his (and others’) socialist sympathies. Steinbeck defended him, while Miller himself persuaded the authorities to allow the communist Neruda in to the U.S. He travelled to Turkey with Pinter, met Havel in Prague, and visited Russian dissident writers including Mandelstam and Brodsky. Huston told him to get Monro off drugs (not realising he’d been trying). He put Hellman’s enmity down to his rebuffing of her advances.

Wesker was among a small group of writers who rejuvenated British theatre in the 1950’s; his later work did not find the same level of success. He met Lessing through her theatre work, thought her stunningly beautiful, and remained a friend. He admitted a soft spot for fellow-dramatist Osborne, went to jail with Logue, took Lennon bagels, smoked salmon and cream cheese, and met and influenced the young Soyinka through their affiliation with the Royal Court theatre. He visited MacDiarmid (his girlfriend cutting the poet’s hair), but said that hearing him reading his work publicly was the worst experience of his life.

Williams was one of the great 20th-century American playwrights. He was taught by Piscator, corresponded sympathetically with O’Neill, and met Fidel Castro together with Hemingway, whom he admired. He had an intense collaborative relationship with Kazan, strong friendships with McCullers, Albee and Jane Bowles, and had his apartment designed by his close friend Smith. Bernstein introduced him to all-male Saturday night dances in Mexico, Yevtushenko left him to pay his huge wine bill, while Isherwood, who had taken a monastic vow of abstinence, allowed that he (Isherwood) could still be a passive sex partner — thus their friendship was cemented.

After Dryden, Shadwell is now seen as the leading playwright of his generation, though his reputation suffered for three centuries as a result of their feud. Initially on good terms, friendship spiralled into barely-concealed public hostility as they sided with different political factions. Pepys was a friend, and godfather to Shadwell’s son. Aubrey was a fellow pallbearer at the poet Samuel Butler’s funeral. Shadwell and Wycherley moved in the same circles and addressed verse to one another, though evidence of a direct acquaintance is absent. Behn was a theatre-world associate, Shadwell however disapproving of her open treatment of sexuality.