Most great plays of the past lose their grip on immediacy; on application to our lives right now.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When we watch a play under the standard circumstances, we've lost volition and time is passing. A still play feels like an existential threat.
In reading plays, however, it should always be remembered that any play, however great, loses much when not seen in action.
When you face up to bad things in the past, the most important thing is not to allow them to happen today or in the future, and as storytellers, we must play our part in that.
In the end, one has to feel lucky that things fell out O.K. I've felt that all the years I've been writing plays.
I think new plays are vastly more surprising and challenging and inspiring; I hear from audiences all the time that they are delighted when they see plays about the world we live in now, at this moment.
At the heart of the failure of most plays is the inability to carry on a thoughtful conversation about your work with yourself.
We cannot do justice to the deeds of former times if we do not in some degree remove ourselves from the circumstances in which we stand and substitute those by which the real actors were surrounded.
I've seen plays that are, objectively, total messes that move me in ways that their tidier brethren do not. That's the romantic mystery of great theater. Translating this ineffability into printable prose is a challenge that can never be fully met.
I'm not sure plays tell people anything. I think plays include an audience in an experience that is happening in that moment, and that's the specialness. What people take away has almost as much to do with what they bring as what we do.
Shakespeare wrote great plays that we're still watching all these years later. Charlie Chaplin made great comedies and they are still as funny today as they ever were.