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Sadly, my German is almost non-existent, although I did a little at school.

Being German, I think we don't really express a lot of things.

An appeal to fear never finds an echo in German hearts.

Action alone doesn't work in Germany - you need an emotional element to the story.

I write the story that nobody reads. Someday, I'm going to write it in German to see if anyone notices.

I did that all the more, if I may say so, because I was aware of the fact that there is an inclination to go to extremes in German people, and in the German character generally.

A play is basically a long, formalistic polemic. You can write it without the poetry, and if you do, you may have a pretty good play. We know this because we see plays in translation. Not many people speak Norwegian or Danish or whatever guys like Ibsen spoke, or Russian - yet we understand Chekhov and the others.

But those two plays left me on fresh terms with language. I didn't always have to speak in my own voice.

I'm German in my mind, but from a Germany that doesn't exist any more.

It's hard to find a play that's right for me to do. Rather than waiting around for the right script to come along, I decided to write one myself.