RIP Mel Gussow

From his NYT obituary:

In a lecture, called "The Role of the Critic," Mr. Gussow told an anecdote about an actor who played the doctor who appears only very briefly in "A Streetcar Named Desire." Mr. Gussow said the actor described the play this way: "It's about this doctor who takes this crazy lady off to an asylum." It taught him much, he said, about what it means to be a player, of any sort, in the theater.

"For an actor or a playwright, even a critic," Mr. Gussow concluded, "one must always believe that what one does is important."