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The dominant theory coming out of Hollywood is that peoples' attention spans are getting shorter and shorter and they need more stimulation.

For years, particularly with the advent of the Internet, people have been griping about lessening attention spans.

I think the New Aesthetic is a series of observations. I think most of the trouble people have had with it comes from a misunderstanding of it as a movement.

Everyone's attention span is getting shorter. As a result, everything - films, music, art - gets watered down and dumber. Every now and again, you get something great, but not often.

At some of the venues, the audience was so loud we could hardly hear what was happening on stage, which kind of threw us back to 1983, when we had very similar reactions on a much bigger scale.

Over the years, I think, people - actors, writers, whatever - lose their frame of reference. Their frame of reference is based on somebody else who did this or did that. Performances. So it just becomes a reflection of what already works. Like a warm-up. And that's an invitation to be inauthentic.

Nowadays the audience has changed. No one can anticipate the audience.

It's just a fact of life. Everybody grows up and goes through changes, and our audience has seen it all.

The long version of the play is actually an easier version to follow. In all of the cut versions the intense speeches are cut too close together for the audience and the actors.