Quote

The great fun of doing new plays is that people have no idea what's going to happen next. That goes quite soon, as people start talking about it, and the only way you can keep hold of that is genuinely to keep changing it.

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.

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.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

People keep telling us, that they didn't know when they were booking tickets for it, but afterwards they say that they've had no sense that they were watching an old fashioned play.

I'm aware of my old plays and occasionally think about them, but I'm much more anxious about finding the next play.

If the audience is made to do not enough work, they resent it without knowing it. Too much and they get lost. There's a perfect pace to be found. And a perfect place that is different for every line of the play.

I'm not suggesting that the play is without fault; all of my plays are imperfect, I'm rather happy to say-it leaves me something to do.

In the first place, it must be remembered that our point of view in examining the construction of a play will not always coincide with that which we occupy in thinking of its whole dramatic effect.